History of Baltic Development Forum

Baltic Development Forum Foundation was established in November 1998, with former Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Uffe Ellemann-Jensen as Chairman. Baltic Development Forum was established in light of a perceived need for a platform for decision makers to discuss strategies for the development of the Baltic Sea region. Baltic Development Forum distinguished itself by being an organisation that gathers not only politicians, but also business, academia and media.

The first major event orgnised by Baltic Development Forum was the first annual summit  held in Copenhagen in May 1999, which attracted almost 300 participants. The Trade Ministers of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) recognized Baltic Development Forum at its Ministerial Conference on trade and economic co-operation in the Baltic Sea Region in Bergen 7-8 February 2000: "The creation of and work carried out by the Baltic Development Forum is a timely and constructive initiative among the efforts to enhance the position of the Baltic Sea Region as a dynamic growth region in Europe".

Baltic Development Forum held its second annual summit in Malmö 17-19 September 2000. Building on the success from the Malmö Summit, Baltic Development Forum decided to reorganise into a membership based organisation in 2001. The members have since made up the core community of Baltic Development Forum. The members are companies, governments, public as well as non-governmental organisations and cities wanting to contribute to the development of the Baltic Sea region and seeing a purpose in being associated with Baltic Development Forum's work. Their influence is continual but combined with the different summit partners, which sponsor the annual summits.

On 23-25 September 2001, Baltic Development Forum held its third annual summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. Despite the terror attacks on 11 September, Baltic Development Forum decided to proceed with the summit. The summit drew more than 500 participants and consolidated Baltic Development Forum as the region's central summit organisation.

The fourth annual Baltic Development Forum summit was held in Copenhagen on 13-15 October 2002 during the Danish EU Presidency and in 2003 the fifth annual summit summit was held in Riga in Latvia. In 2004, the sixth annual Baltic Development Forum summit was held in Hamburg, Germany on 12-14 September.  

Baltic Development Forum held its seventh annual summit in Stockholm in Sweden, 16-18 October 2005 with more than 500 high-level participants. Among the prominent speakers were President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.

In 2006, Baltic Development Forum expanded its activities to co-organizing meetings, for instance in St. Petersburg. The annual Summit was held in Helsinki, Finland on 29-31 October in close relation to the Finnish Presidency of the EU. Both the Finnish president Halonen and Prime Minister Vanhanen gave speeches during the Summit.

This year, the Summit will take place in Copenhagen-Malmö on 30 November - 2 December, and the Baltic Development Forum Staff looks forward to welcome all our distinguished guests.