The BSPC in Mariehamn, Åland, 29-31 August will continue to put pressure on governments to exert their political influence on issues of major importance to the future of the Region. The rising number of shipments of oil and hazardous materials has raised expectations that the governments will reach an agreement on an effective reporting system for shipping, e.g. by closer co-ordination and harmonisation of existing systems, according to the BSPC.

The marine environment has long been high on the BSPC agenda. At governmental level work on the marine environment is the responsibility of HELCOM, of which Sweden assumed the Presidency in July. Last week, the Swedish Minister of the Environment, Andreas Carlgren, expressed expectations that Baltic partnerships will make a tangible, positive impact on the environment. He referred, for example, to the meeting of environment ministers in May 2010 and to their declaration, which in his opinion provides HELCOM members with a strong mandate to implement the action plan for the Baltic Sea.

The chairperson of the BSPC, Christina Gestrin, has previously stated that she expects governments to fulfil their obligation to implement HELCOM’s Baltic Sea Action Plan as scheduled. Ann Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM Executive Secretary reported back to the BSPC on HELCOM’s work on the action plan.

The EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region is an important political driving force designed to encourage the Union to focus more closely on the Region and to provide further impetus to the action plan. Gestrin has previously expressed a desire to see the EU’s Baltic Sea Strategy more closely linked with, and implemented in the same spirit as, the Northern Dimension, which brings together EU member states and non-members as equal partners.

The Baltic Sea Region, which has historically served as a forum for political discussion, has long been considered an ideal Region for closer partnership and new forms of co-operation. As recently as last week, the Nordic foreign ministers met and in the newspaper Politiken the Danish minister extolled the potential virtues of closer partnership between the Baltic and Nordic states in several spheres, in particular the greater potential impact in international forums.

The Nordic Council has previously stated that it shares the perception that the Baltic Sea Region should strengthen its position and raise its visibility in wider international contexts, and underlined that the primary need is for action.

The question is whether the parliamentarians attending BSPC 2010 will be satisfied with the work done by the governments or whether they will wish to exert further political pressure to influence the future of the Baltic.

A resolution is expected to be published at a press conference in Mariehamn on Tuesday 31 August at 14:00.

Facts: Inter-governmental co-operation is the responsibility of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), while inter-parliamentary co-operation is looked after by, for example, the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC). Sub-regional bodies also have their own Baltic organisations, as do the cities and the business sector.

Further info about the BSPC.

Interview (in Swedish) featuring Marine-environment Ambassador Gabriella Lindholm about the starting signal for Sweden's chair of HELCOM

Contact: Jan Widberg, Head of the BSPC Secretariat, tel.: +45 24 69 94 46, e-mail: jw@norden.org