The Finnish-Swedish Bothnian Arc Association, the City of Oulu, and the Council of Oulu Region together with a broad set of stakeholders, are organising the Finnish-Swedish European North Transport Forum (ENTF) in Oulu on 21–22 September 2023.

The European North Transport Forum will conclude an interactive Finnish-Swedish co-operation process in the Bothnian Arc in 2022–2023. As a result, a joint vision and goals for the Bothnian Arc transport system has been completed and will be presented at the forum. To ensure a continuous dialogue also in the future, we aim to launch a Finnish-Swedish cross-border transport forum within the Bothnian Arc region. We are stronger when we work together.

The European North Transport Forum will gather decision-makers, transport system experts, regional stakeholders, and representatives from the business sector from EU, Finland, and Sweden. In the forum's programme, we shall discuss the position of the Bothnian Arc in the European TEN-T network; the role of a functioning and sufficient infrastructure and transport as a driver for sustainable growth, business development and attractiveness; and the challenges and prospects of developing a cross-border transport system.

For more information and registration:

Bothnian Arc participates in Save the Bothnian Bay campaign. The campaign website can be found on the Bothnian Arc website (in Finnish and Swedish). 

The Bothnian Arc region participates in Baltic Sea Day with Save the Bothnian Bay campaign. The City of Oulu has challenged municipalities in both Finland and Sweden to join the campaign. It is hoped that the campaign's fish mascots Hilma and Helge Grayling will inspire people in the area to get involved.

Save the Bothnian Bay campaign which began last year is challenging residents, municipalities, schools and organisations in the area. The campaign is part of the annual Baltic Sea Day, which is not known in the northern Finland and Sweden in the same way as in the south. The goal is for the entire Bothnian Arc region to participate in Baltic Sea Day through Save the Bothnian Bay campaign on the last Thursday of August.

You can read more about the campaign from media release here:

On May 10 and 11, two seminars of the project were held at the border. On the first day, it was time for a transport seminar for stakeholders in Cape East Haparanda, where the transport vision 2040 for Bothnian Arc was discussed. On the second day, the final seminar on the theme of tourism was held at Grand Hotel Mustaparta in Tornio, where the theme was cross-border cooperation possibilities.

Bothnian Arc had it's annual meeting in Kalix at the end of April. Mikael Engren from the municipality of Kalix welcomed us all to Kalix. The annual meeting approved the financial statements for 2022 and a new strategy for the association. In the meeting Daniel Smirat was elected to continue as a chair and Ari Heikkinen as a vice chair.