Press release
Helsinki, 5 March (HELCOM Information Service) – Representatives of the nine Baltic Sea coastal countries and the EU will convene at the 28th annual Helsinki Commission Meeting on 7-8 March in Helsinki, Finland, to review the organisation’s progress in the protection of the Baltic marine environment and set new objectives and priorities for future work.
The development of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan will dominate the agenda of the meeting. Delegations of the HELCOM Member States are expected to consider the proposed actions for the ambitious new strategy designed to dramatically reduce pollution and reverse the degradation of the Baltic Sea. In particular, the Meeting will discuss actions for the four respective segments of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, concerning eutrophication, biodiversity, maritime activities, and hazardous substances, as well as provide guidance for their further development.
“At the Meeting, we are going to review the whole set of actions needed to achieve within a given timeframe the agreed goal of a Baltic Sea unaffected by eutrophication, undisturbed by hazardous substances, with favourable biodiversity and environmentally friendly maritime activities”, said Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary. “We will also look into the financial aspects of the plan’s implementation and the cost-efficiency of the proposed measures.”
The Baltic Sea Action Plan, which is being jointly drafted by the HELCOM Member States, sets a target of achieving by 2021 a good ecological status of the Baltic Sea - a sea with diverse biological components functioning in balance and supporting a wide-range of sustainable human economic and social activities. It incorporates input of major stakeholders groups, and the findings of numerous project studies, workshops, and key regional environmental policies.
The HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan is designed to solve all major environmental problems affecting the Baltic marine environment. “Of the many environmental challenges, the most serious, and proving difficult to tackle with conventional approaches, is the continuing eutrophication of the Baltic Sea and inputs of hazardous substances impacting the Baltic Sea biodiversity and its sustainable use,” said Brusendorff. “Problems with algal bloom, dead sea-beds clearly show the situation and call for immediate wide-scale action to put an end to further destruction of the Baltic Sea environment to avoid an irreversible disaster.”
Preparations for the HELCOM Ministerial Meeting in Krakow, Poland, where the new environmental strategy is scheduled to be approved on 15 November 2007, will be one of the topmost issues at the meeting. The Heads of Delegation of the HELCOM Member States will discuss the draft agenda for the Ministerial Meeting, as well as the set of documents to be proposed for adoption.
The annual Commission Meeting is planning to approve four HELCOM thematic assessments reports on eutrophication, biodiversity, maritime activities, hazardous substances, and climate change, which will serve as background information to the action plan. They contain a concise draft overview on the status of the Baltic marine environment.
The Meeting will consider the outcome of the 2nd Stakeholder Conference on the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, which takes place on 6 March in Helsinki, prior to the Commission’s annual meeting. The outcome of the various sessions of the Conference will serve as an input to the ongoing process to develop the Baltic Sea Action Plan. HELCOM considers this input very important and is committed to respond to any suggestion raised by major stakeholder groups in the region in order to ensure that the future action plan is relevant and can be effectively implemented in practice.
According to the Agenda of the annual meeting, the Heads of Delegation of the HELCOM Member States will also review working programmes, intersessional work and ongoing projects, including the GEF/World Bank funded Baltic Sea Regional Project, as well as the activities of the five HELCOM subsidiary Groups.
Representatives of the Baltic Sea countries are expected to approve three new draft HELCOM Recommendations, including on “Strengthening of sub-regional cooperation in response field”, which is to form a part of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan, on “Environmentally Friendly Practices for the Reduction and Prevention of Emissions of Dioxins and other Hazardous Substances from Small Scale Combustion”, and on “Reduction of emissions from crematoria”. These Recommendations will be submitted for adoption by the HELCOM Ministerial Meeting in Krakow.
The Commission will also adopt the revised HELCOM Recommendation 26/1 “Application of the no-special-fee system to ship-generated wastes in the Baltic Sea Area”. The amendment of the later concerns a new criterion for the indication of the frequency of “scheduled traffic with regular and frequent port calls” that is subject to exemption from the obligatory payment for waste delivered to port (point 3.2.3. of the Recommendation).
The annual HELCOM Meeting will additionally amend three HELCOM Recommendations to bring them in line with the new Annex VI (Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships) to the MARPOL 73/78 Convention, which entered into force on 19 May 2005. The HELCOM Recommendations concerned are:
- HELCOM Recommendation 7/7 on recording of fuel oil bunkering operations in the oil record book and documentation for the use of reception facilities;
- HELCOM Recommendation 19/14 on a harmonized system of fines in case a ship violates anti-pollution regulations;
- HELCOM Recommendation 24/6 on guidelines on bunkering operations and ship to ship cargo transfer of oils, subject to Annex I of MARPOL 73/78, in the Baltic Sea area.
The annual Meeting of the Helsinki Commission will take place at the Marina Congress Center in Helsinki. It will be opened by Prof. Mieczyslaw S. Ostojski, Chairman of the Helsinki Commission.
Follow-up:
Press release on the 2nd Stakeholder Conference on the Baltic Sea Action Plan
http://www.helcom.fi/press_office/news_helcom/en_GB/2nd_StakeholderConference/
Note to Editors:
The Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, more usually known as the Helsinki Commission, or HELCOM, is an intergovernmental organisation of all the nine Baltic Sea countries and the EU which works to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution.
HELCOM is the governing body of the "Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area," 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.