Setting environment first, the European Commission has published its much-awaited “Baltic Strategy”.
The strategy, expected by its proponents to act as an example for similar regional approaches elsewhere in the Union, had been called for by the European Parliament and the EU Council in a conclusions document in December 2007.
The Strategy, published in Brussels on June 10 and a main priority for the Swedish EU Presidency in the second half of this year, will aim at four main objectives:
- To improve the environmental state of the region in general, and of the Baltic Sea in particular. Excessive discharges of nitrates and phosphates have made eutrophication a major problem, and overfishing has contributed to threatening a cod stock that just 25 years ago was one of the world’s largest, although recent signs have shown that a recovery may be underway.
- To create economic prosperity in the region by supporting balanced economic development. The current global crisis has hit some of the nine nations bordering to the Baltic Sea – eight EU members and Russia – particularly hard, especially Latvia.
- To make the region more ”accessible and attractive”, for the inhabitants as well as for competent work force and tourists, The Commissions mentions the unattractive fact that it presently takes 36 hours to travel by train between Tallinn and Warsaw.
- To make the Baltic Sea region a safer and more secure place. Accident response is an area mentioned, and a joint maritime surveillance system may be a possibility.
The Strategy, published in the form of a communication from the Commission, is accompanied by an ”action plan” specifying 15 areas of priority and 80 ”flagship projects”. “To preserve natural zones and biodiversity, including fisheries” is one of the priority areas, and the featured projects include the creation of marine protected areas, measures to facilitate migration and reproduction of migratory fish species, and “Eradicating discards”.
Each of the 15 areas of priority will have a coordinating and politically responsible lead member state.
At a seminar in the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) commemorating the launch of the Strategy, WWF-Sweden Secretary General Lasse Gustavsson called the Commission papers an “opening“ for integration of fisheries and agriculture into the work for Baltic improvement, but added that these key areas are not “held forth strongly enough“ in this Strategy proposal. He underlined the fact that the Strategy carries with it no new funding and no new structures or organisations, and that it is therefore essential that it will be handled on the highest political level, by the member states Government chiefs.
“Much is said here about the economic crisis, but the ecological crisis is worse, since we are presently using the resources of not one, but three worlds“, Lasse Gustavsson said.
“The Baltic Sea is a much beloved, but much threatened sea. On the other hand, we have private industry here that is by-en-large progressive on ecological issues, we have politicians that could almost be seen as environmental activists as compared to those in other parts of the world, and we have a population whose involvement is close to religious. If a project like this would stand a chance to succeed anywhere in the world, it would be here“.
“On the other hand. If we fail – where else could it then succeed?“, he concluded.