HELCOM Heads of Delegation to assess the readiness of the Baltic recovery plan

Helsinki, 10 September (HELCOM Information Service) – The Helsinki Commission for the protection of the Baltic marine environment will convene a Meeting of the Heads of Delegation of Member States on 17-19 September in Helsinki to assess the overall readiness of the Baltic Sea Action Plan, as well as to decide on any additional work to finalise this new environmental strategy being devised by HELCOM to drastically reduce pollution to the sea and restore its good ecological status.

Representatives of the coastal countries will particularly consider the recommendations of the recently held Expert Meetings on the action plan, which discussed the required pollution reduction levels and the proposed actions for the four segments of the action plan, i.e. measures to curb eutrophication caused by excessive nutrient loads entering the sea, prevent pollution involving hazardous substances, improve maritime safety and accident response capacity, and halt habitat destruction and the decline in biodiversity. 

“The upcoming Meeting of the Heads of Delegation of HELCOM Member States will be the most crucial for our work on the plan to date,” said Anne Christine Brusendorff, HELCOM’s Executive Secretary. “During the past 18 months, we have been engaged in a major effort to devise an ambitious and meaningful action plan and to reach an agreement on a set of concrete actions needed to restore the Baltic marine environment. The upcoming Meeting will mark the peak of this phase of our work. We have now a good draft of the plan, but there are still some unresolved issues, including some of the plan’s key pollution-reduction measures which have not yet been approved by all the coastal countries. The most critical ingredient for success now is the strong political commitment of the coastal states to agree on purposeful and wide-ranging actions that will truly help to solve major problems affecting the Baltic. I very much hope that the upcoming Meeting of the Heads of Delegation will provide a strong impetus for the preparation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan scheduled for adoption on 15 November at the HELCOM Ministerial Meeting in Krakow, Poland,” said Brusendorff.

The Baltic Sea Action Plan, which the HELCOM Member States decided to jointly draft in 2005, sets an ambitious 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. This plan has already been widely heralded as a pilot project for the European seas under the EU Marine Strategy and a model to be followed by other regional marine conventions around Europe.

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, caused by excessive pollution loads of nitrogen and phosphorus to the sea originating from agriculture and untreated sewage. Problems like algal blooms, dead sea-beds, depletion of fish stocks 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.

According to a recent HELCOM study, a total annual reduction of up to 135,000 tonnes of nitrogen and 15,000 tonnes of phosphorus will be needed to rescue the troubled sea. Most of the reductions are required in such sub-basins as the Baltic Proper, the Gulf of Finland, the Danish Straits, and the Kattegat.

The Meeting of the Heads of Delegation will take place at the premises of the HELCOM Secretariat in Helsinki. It will be opened by the Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Prof. Mieczyslaw S. Ostojski.

Note to Editors: 

The Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), officially known as the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission, is an intergovernmental organisation of all the nine Baltic Sea countries and the EU working to protect the marine environment of the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollution and to ensure safety of navigation. 

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.fi