Baltic Sea Region Perspectives - Safety and Security Objective in the EU strategy for the Baltic Sea Region

Keynote speech by Foreign Minister of Finland, Mr. Alexander Stubb
Helsinki, December 9, 2008

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Dear Participants of the Roundtable,

I'm pleased to be able to address this roundtable discussion on safety and security in the Baltic Sea region. This debate takes place at a time when the European Commission is preparing a proposal for a European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. This is the right time to focus our minds on what we can do together in the Union for this region.

What should be the focus of the strategy? I think that the value added from the European Union would come from using the legislative power, programmes and financing in a way that is more focused on the special features of the Baltic Sea region. The successful enlargement means that the EU is now a framework for eight out of nine coastal states of the Baltic Sea.

We have always been good in producing papers and organising ourselves in the Baltic Sea region. A plenty of research material is available on the key problems. What we lack is coordinated action with more ambitious goals than we have set so far in the region.

I very much welcome the four priority areas of the strategy that the European Commission has presented as guidance for the stakeholder debates. Environment, prosperity, accessibility and attractiveness & safety and security seem to cover pretty much the areas where the Baltic Sea Region could well use a vitalising dose of EU cooperation.

In order to make the EU Strategy relevant for us in the region, it would have to be accompanied with a practical action plan. We need to identify and formulate a limited number of flagship projects in each of the priority areas. The stakeholder conferences will be concluded with this roundtable discussion on safety and security and I will put forward some thoughts particularly on this theme.

Among the priorities that Finland has identified for the EU strategy are the environment and maritime safety. The latter is obviously linked to the first one in many ways. The EU strategy can be used for enhancing the co-operation between coastal states in planning and implementing measures to improve maritime safety. We have identified a couple of practical proposals which we hope will find their way into the Commission's proposal.

Vessel traffic is growing steadily at the Baltic Sea. This is natural in an industrialised and rapidly growing economic area that needs efficient transport connections.

Nowadays, more than 145 million tons of oil is being shipped in the Baltic Sea, nearly all of that through the Gulf of Finland. In couple of year's time, by 2015 latest, that figure is likely to grow to 250 million tons.

Put that in the midst of the growing number of other vessels in the Gulf of Finland, representing five per cent of the Baltic Sea area and you have a growing risk of a major accident waiting for you.

That so much more oil is being transported through the Gulf of Finland is partly explained by the policy of Russia. Russia is abandoning some of the Baltic connections and developing its own harbours.

Examples of effective tools to improve maritime safety are measures relating to vessel traffic monitoring, routeing and information systems. In the Baltic Sea the Gulf of Finland Reporting System (GOFREP) established by Estonia, Finland and Russia is a good example of an effective and functioning system and co-operation.

We should use the EU strategy for enhancing the cooperation between the coastal states in planning and executing measures to improve maritime safety. No proper coordination exists to cover the whole Baltic Sea with ample measures to monitor, route and guide the growing traffic.

This need to be put in place and this is precisely what the Union's strategy is for.

Risks caused by the vessel traffic can be reduced by increasing safety measures. It is also important to ensure adequate life saving capabilities, pollution preparedness and response capabilities.

As all measures are executed by men and the efficiency of the measures depend on human performance, emphasis should be put, besides technical systems, also on human performance on the ships bridges and Vessel Traffic Service (VTS) centres and on the communication between these two. Therefore, the training and experience of navigators are worth looking at as an area where we need to do more.

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I want to point out already at this point that although we are drafting an internal EU Strategy, it needs to have an external dimension to it. When the European Council mandated to Commission to draft the Baltic Sea Strategy, it marked that the Northern Dimension framework provides the basis for the external aspects of cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region.

Maritime safety, but also many other aspects of today's theme require the participation of all states in the Baltic Sea Region. Most measures to improve maritime safety need a decision by the International Maritime Organisation. It is important to build a consensus on new measures amongst the coastal states and then pursue our aims at international forums, like the IMO.

The strategy should come with an action plan specifying who is going to do what and in what timeframe. We have after all a good selection of tools available. Just think of HELCOM, CBSS, the Nordic Investment Bank, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Task Force on Organised Crime, to name just a few. Non-EU states in the Baltic Sea region would have to be committed into joint problem solving efforts. This is precisely why the EU has the Northern Dimension with Russia, Norway and Iceland as equal partners.

In maritime safety we could envisage also the building of joint capacity to react to maritime emergencies in this region. There are bilateral agreements and some multilateral exchange of information between authorities responsible for emergency response in the countries around the Baltic Sea.

This cooperation needs to be put on firm and regular basis and it has to include an effective operational capability based on the pooling of our resources in cases where a national response is inadequate. In the case of a serious emergency in the sea, there is no time to tackle with bureaucratic hindrances. A permanent task force on emergency response in the Baltic Sea Region could be created.

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If maritime safety, including the emergency response measures, is the number one priority for us among the safety and security chapter of the strategy, I would allocate the second place to the fight against organised crime.

We have a long tradition in working with these issues in cooperation. The Prime Ministers of this region established a Task Force on Organised Crime in the Baltic Sea Region already in 1996. It is not a permanent structure and the current mandate extends to the end of 2010. Apart from the representatives of the states in this region it includes the Commission and Europol and Interpol representatives.

I would like to use the EU Strategy for making sure that this Task Force plays a continuous strategic and operational role and fosters its cooperation with Europol. I could see a useful role for the Task Force in supporting with practical input the implementation of the EU's Baltic Sea Strategy.

Obviously we would also here have to make sure that the non-EU countries are able to participate and contribute on a equal footing to the on-going work of the Task Force also when it relates to issues that the EU highlights in its strategy.

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EU's Baltic Sea strategy needs an implementation mechanism that will enable the Commission and the Member States to regularly come together and follow up that we are actually reaching our goals. We should not copy the model in which a strategy is immediately being followed with the establishment of a secretariat headed by secretary general and assisted by other high officials. In the Baltic Sea region that would mean starting from the wrong end.

Instead of creating new structures we should use in a clever way the existing organisations and support the implementation of present commitments, like the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. HELCOM, which covers all the Baltic Sea coastal States, could serve as the focal organisation for the implementation of environmental goals.

In financing of the strategy I would voice support for the European Parliament’s view expressed in the 2006 resolution that the strategy must receive adequate funding from all relevant budget lines.

In addition a combination of different sources and instruments is needed.

Therefore we are looking at Member States, private partners in the region and to international financial institutions. We need to pool the resources of many actors in order to make a difference.

Finally, as this is the last of the stakeholder roundtables before the Conference next year in Rostock, I want to thank the Commission for the very open method of preparation for the strategy. Not only the governments, but other actors, the whole civil society in its great variety has been able to contribute and I know that the Commission has been listening to their proposals carefully. This creates ownership of the Baltic Sea Strategy for the many stakeholders. I'm convinced that this will be for the benefit of the strategy when we enter the implementation phase.

I wish for a good debate at this roundtable discussion.