Statement of the Minister of the Environment of Finland, Mr. Kimmo Tiilikainen, November 15, 2007 in Krakow HELCOM Ministerial Meeting

Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues,

Finland's government has two environmental priorities: Climate Change and Protection of the Baltic Sea. Therefore, we had high expectations to the work of preparing the Baltic Sea Action Plan. And I am very happy to be here in Krakow today in this meeting to adopt this Action Plan.

To counteract the disturbance to the Baltic Sea environment, and to prevent damage in case of a major environmental accident, we need to act now. Deterioration of the environment continues and as a result, the price tag on the counteracting measures only increases with time. To further specify the price of the environmental damage and of the value of the Baltic Sea, we should produce a report on the costs and benefits of the Baltic Sea environment protection - a "Baltic Sea Stern" report.

HELCOM has been the forum for international collaboration for over thirty years. Its strength is in contracting parties that function as equal partners. HELCOM has an acknowledgeable amount of experience and knowledge of the problems of the Baltic Sea. Today, I am glad to note that HELCOM is probably the first marine convention in the world to have a truly overarching Action Plan for recovery and protection. The Action Plan is exceptional in the sense that it is based on ecosystem's needs for recovery and protection, it covers the most important environmental issues and it contains tailor-made solutions for the different challenges.

In my opinion, the Action Plan opens a new era in marine environment protection by including the concept of maximum allowable nutrient input. It also contains the provisional country-wise nutrient reduction needs that are shared among the countries in a fair manner. This approach enables countries to choose in a flexible and cost-effective manner measures that are most suitable to them.

In this context, I would also like to highlight that national needs may require nutrient reductions that go beyond those agreed within this Action Plan. For example in Finland we will reduce nutrient losses from agriculture. To do this, and to especially help our archipelago areas, we have established a practical pilot program in close cooperation with the farmers union.

Furthermore, I consider it a step forward that the contracting parties engage themselves in taking steps towards designating more land of the Baltic Sea catchment area as nitrate vulnerable zone. I hope that Finland with its entire area declared as nitrate vulnerable zone will be an example here.

I am also satisfied with the activities agreed in the Action Plan for decreasing nutrient load into the Baltic Sea from shipping. I believe that effective means are available to prevent pollution from sewage discharges. We also agree that the best way to contribute is to jointly raise the question at the international level in the IMO. Finland will be happy to act as a lead for jointly preparing a submission to IMO to start the evaluation of necessary measures under the MARPOL convention.

Maritime traffic and especially the transportation of oil in the Baltic Sea is on a strong increase and it means an increased risk of shipping incidents and also a threat of a severe oil spill in the future. Therefore, I am very satisfied with the decision we made to advance winter navigation safety and efficiency in the Baltic Sea.

We all should take the risk of a major oil spill seriously. Imagine that an accident similar to that in the Black Sea – that happened in the past week – would take place in the Baltic Sea. We would not be prepared enough. Therefore we need to build up our national response capacity and actively cooperate in the response work.

I am mainly satisfied but also a little bit disappointed with the Baltic Sea Action Plan. I am satisfied with a good overall program but with the timetables we wanted to be more ambitious. For that reason and for the program to yield the desired results, it needs to be implemented in a thorough manner. We decided to set an Implementation Group for the follow-up of implementation, which, in my opinion, is one of the most important decisions we have made today. The Baltic Sea can not wait – we must challenge ourselves to ambitious implementation of the plan.

We have a good plan, and as the HELCOM community, we should be proud of ourselves today!