HELCOM’s Chairman hosts a working lunch for the Ambassadors of the Baltic Sea countries

Helsinki, 10 November (HELCOM Information Service) – The Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Mr. Igor Maydanov, today hosted an annual working lunch for the Ambassadors of the Baltic Sea countries and EU, as well as the countries in the Baltic Sea catchment area accredited to Finland, to discuss issues having effect on the international co-operation for the protection of the Baltic marine environment. Finland was represented by the Director General of the Finnish Environment Institute, Ms. Lea Kauppi.

This was already the eighth annual meeting of the HELCOM Chairman with the Ambassadors of the Contracting States to the Helsinki Convention. The key issues on the agenda of the meeting were the two-year Russian HELCOM Chairmanship, which began in July, and the launch of the implementation of the strategic HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, adopted last year, to drastically reduce pollution to the sea and restore its good ecological status by 2021.

In his speech at the diplomatic lunch Igor Maydanov pointed out that the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan is considered an initiative of the highest political importance for the Baltic Sea region. “Under the Russian HELCOM Chairmanship ensuring the successful implementation of the internationally agreed set of actions to re-create a healthy Baltic marine environment will be the topmost priority,” said Maydanov. “Russia will try to ensure wider participation of various stakeholders in the implementation of the action plan, as well as the realisation of all the necessary measures to ensure the sustainability of the recovery process of the Baltic marine ecosystem.” 

Maydanov underlined that the action plan focuses on the region’s most urgent environmental problems, and in many ways is linked to the European and international programmes that regulate activities in the common European space. “Therefore, one of the main HELCOM tasks over the next two years will be to pro-actively get all interested stakeholders involved in dialogues at regional and Pan-European levels to provide permanent political support to achieve the plan’s environmental goals, and to mobilise the necessary financial resources,” he said.

HELCOM’s Chairman briefed the Ambassadors on the practical work that HELCOM is engaged in at the moment. According to Maydanov, one of the topmost issues is the elaboration of a comprehensive list of municipal wastewater treatment plants. This is considered as one of the priority projects for the successful implementation of the action plan. Municipal wastewater treatment plants contribute to one third of the total nutrient load to the Baltic Sea, being one of the major causes of eutrophication. Therefore, mitigation of their excessive nutrient loads is recognised as one of the priority actions, due to its cost efficiency and easiness to monitor the progress. HELCOM is taking a step-wise approach in order to elaborate a comprehensive list of wastewater treatment plants, in which municipal wastewater treatment plants discharging directly to the Baltic Sea, and not yet fulfilling relevant HELCOM requirements are addressed as the first step in project prioritisation.

Another key issue is the elaboration of a list of the agricultural pollution hot spots not fulfilling the HELCOM requirements, said Maydanov. Agriculture remains a major source of nutrient inputs to the Baltic Sea and is mainly considered a diffuse source of pollution, as the nutrients affecting the Baltic Sea enter indirectly via runoff in the watershed area. The impacts of agriculture can be reduced by means of broad application of Good Agricultural Practices at farmlands within the catchment of the Baltic Sea. Nevertheless, intensified development of industrial production of cattle, pigs and poultry within the Baltic Sea area has led to the creation of a new segment of pollution point sources, contributing significantly to the amount of nutrient loads.  Therefore, these can be addressed in the same manner as industrial point sources, for example through establishment of the list of priority hot spots to be remediated first.

Note to Editors:

The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, usually referred to as the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), is an intergovernmental organisation of the nine Baltic Sea coastal countries and the European Community working to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution and to ensure safety of navigation in the region. 

HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area," more usually known as the Helsinki Convention.

For more information, please contact:

Mr. Nikolay Vlasov

Information Secretary

HELCOM

Tel: +358 (0)207 412 635

Fax: +358 (0)207 412 639

E-mail: nikolay.vlasov@helcom.fi