Identification of challenges and problems in the implementation of the circular economy in the Baltic Sea Region

The article presents results of the first phase of the project CCI: Circular Economy and Place, which identified challenges and problems in the process of developing and implementing an economy model in the Baltic Sea Region that meets the assumptions of the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan. The comparison of project's original assumptions with the identified conditions made its authors realise the need to restructure methods and ways of action (in the second phase), making the prospect of achieving the fundamental goal more realistic: reducing the gap in the ability to run a circular economy in the peripheral Baltic Sea Region compared to the centre of the European Union. The desirability of analysing the conclusions formulated after the first phase of the project is justified by the importance of macroregional conditions in processes of the EU mechanisms implementation, which are supposed to be identical for all parts of the European Union.