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In preparation of the Digital 29 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference on 24 August 2020, the BSPC’s Rapporteur on Sea Dumped Munitions, MP Peter Stein, has issued an Interim Report which deals with the issue of dumped munitions and unexploded ordnance in the Baltic Sea. This Interim Report provides a general overview of the current situation and existing challenges in dealing with the legacy, presents a selection of ongoing research projects and results in broad outlines and provides an insight into the current state of the art. Following the 28 th BSPC resolution, a conclusion is drawn on the state of implementation and, finally, a proposal is drawn up on how the existing knowledge and technology can be used efficiently by the Baltic Sea countries to solve the problem of sea-dumped munitions and unexploded ordnance in the Baltic Sea with a variety of links to further materials. The Report can be downloaded here and on the Rapporteurs’ webpage.

The BSPC Standing Committee members reported at the Digital Standing Committee meeting on 17 June 2020 on developments of the corona crisis to date, the current situation and the assessment of further steps in their countries. The topic turned out to be of high interest for the participants; therefore, the Standing Committee agreed that the members of the BSPC would be asked to deepen the meeting’s survey through written reports on the subject. The following statements give a survey of the development in most Baltic Sea Region Countries. The reports also inform about the effects on the work of parliaments and interparliamentary organisations as well as on legislative measures to deal with the consequences of the pandemic. The statements also serve to prepare the digital 29 th BSPC. The compilation will be updated as soon as further statements are received. The Document can be downloaded here and on the 29th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference webpage.

In preparation of the Digital 29 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference on 24 August 2020, the BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration has published the Final Report on its activities throughout the past three years. The Report will be presented at the digital 29 th conference, containing the primary considerations and the results of the negotiations during the last years. The Report also features numerous links to the materials which had been discussed in the Working Group, exceptionally detailed information on the expert presentations and homework assignments carried out by the Working Group as well as to other materials already published on the website. Moreover, the Report highlights best practice examples from the BSPC member countries. Furthermore, it includes links to intergovernmental surveys and a policy assessment by the Migration Institute of Finland as well as the results of a Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum and the statements of governments to recent calls for action of the Working Group and the BSPC. The Final Report comprises political recommendations – also referring to the COVID-19 pandemic – which have been included in the draft resolution of the digital 29 th conference. The Report can be downloaded here and on the Working Group webpage.

Under the chairmanship of BSPC President Valerijus Simulik, the BSPC Standing Committee held its first Digital Meeting. Delegations from the Åland Islands, the Baltic Assembly, Denmark, the German Bundestag, Finland, Hamburg, Kaliningrad, Latvia, Lithuania, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Nordic Council, Norway, Poland and Sweden participated in the meeting. Current situation in the BSPC BSPC President Valerijus Simulik, in his welcoming speech, recalled the extraordinary circumstances of the previous Standing Committee meeting in Brussels. Right after that meeting on 2 March, the President of the European Parliament had announced that until further notice no more meetings of international bodies would be held in the European Parliament. At that time, no one had been able to say with sufficient certainty how drastically the situation of this pandemic would affect the population in nearly every country of the world. Currently, there were attempts to return to a new normal through a plethora of individual measures at different speeds. Mr Simulik stressed, however, that the situation in different BSPC member countries varied significantly and that this divergence would prevent all members from physically meeting again for an unforeseeable period. In this context, the Standing Committee meeting initially planned for 29 May in Vilnius had been rendered unfeasible. Accordingly, Mr Simulik had proposed a Standing Committee meeting in digital form in its stead to discuss the further procedure within the BSPC. The COVID-19 pandemic – the situation in the BSPC member countries TheStanding Committee members reported on developments of the corona crisis to date, the current situation and the assessment of further steps in their countries. Mr Pyry Niemi and Ms Cecilie Tenfjord Toftby presented the case in Sweden, Mr Simon Påvals in the Åland Islands and Mr Christian Juhl in Denmark. Mr Johannes Schraps spoke from the perspective of the German Bundestag, Mr Alexander Musewitsch about the situation in Kaliningrad, Prof Jānis Vucāns from the point of view of the Baltic Assembly and Mr Arne Fogtby in the name of Mr Michael Tetzschner from the perspective of the Nordic Council. Mr Arvils Ašeradens talked about Latvia and Mr Jarosław Wałęsa about Poland. The topic turned out to be of high interest for the participants; therefore, the Standing Committee agreed that the members of the BSPC would be asked to deepen the meeting’s survey through written reports on the subject. The 29 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference BSPC President Valerijus Simulik regretted that due to the unpredictable situation related to the spread of COVID-19, the Board of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania on 21 May 2020 had been forced to cancel the events that had been planned as part of the 29 th Baltic on 22-25 August 2020. This decision had been necessary to protect the citizens of all countries against the possible spread of the virus. Information about that decision had been sent to all parliaments immediately and published on the website. The President pointed out that the Seimas in that situation was determined to take over the Presidency from Sweden and hold the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in 2022. He proposed discussing the question of whether, given the current situation, the 29 th BSPC should be held in a digital and condensed form. In careful consideration of all circumstances, the BSPC Standing Committee unanimously decided that the 29 th BSPC annual conference will be held in a digital form on 24 August. This decision started the usual path for also preparing a BSPC Resolution which will be discussed in a digital Drafting Committee meeting on 20 August. BSPC Presidencies BSPC Vice President Pyry Niemi informed about the issues of the upcoming Swedish Presidency which will be part of the BSPC Strategy and Work Programme for 2020/2021. The Standing Committee welcomed that subsequent the Presidency of Sweden set to begin right after the 29 th BSPC and following the elections in Lithuania, the Lithuanian Parliament will consider if it would be possible for the BSPC Presidency to return to Lithuania. BSPC Rapporteurs and the new BSPC Working Group The Standing Committee has left it to the rapporteurs to decide whether they will also submit a report this year which would be published on the website or – due to the cancellation of many international events – whether they will report next year on a two-year period. Ms Cecilie Tenfjord Toftby from the Swedish Parliament, the designated Chairwoman of the upcoming BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity, reported that a significant amount of preparations had been implemented before the pandemic; therefore her team was ready to start working. She encouraged the delegates to join the working group and invited the members to the first meeting of the group in November to Stockholm.

Under the Chairmanship of BSPC President Valerijus Simulik, the BSPC Standing Committee gathered at the European Parliament in Brussels on 2 March 2020 to exchange information about current common issues with the CBSS, to inquire about the developments in the field of the European maritime and regional policy, and to prepare the upcoming Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Vilnius. About 50 participants, representatives and delegations of the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, and of the BSPC members from the Åland Islands, the Baltic Assembly, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Nordic Council, Norway, Poland, the Russian Federation and Sweden participated in the meeting. The Standing Committee was greeted by Mr Andreas Schwab , MEP, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Northern cooperation and for relations with Switzerland and Norway and to the EU-Iceland Joint Parliamentary Committee and the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee on behalf of the President of the European Parliament. The EEA delegation, he explained, was dealing with the EU’s northern European policies and relations with various parliamentary formats in the north. During the last parliamentary term, the delegation inter alia had actively participated in activities of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and its Standing Committee. It also hosted the fifth Northern Dimension Parliamentary Forum and maintained close contacts with the Nordic Council as well as the West-Nordic Council. It was also the intention of the European Parliament to keep both the Baltic and Arctic areas high on the agenda of their work, as represented in the EEA delegation. As requested by parliament and its committees, the remit of the delegation was rather wide, making it special and interesting. The European Parliament was paying close attention to the Baltic Sea region and its own inter-governmental and sub-national institutions, including the parliamentary ones. The European Union’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region was a fundamental tool to maximise the growth of this region, and there were many member states of the European Union that were involved but also the Russian colleagues. The European Union underlined the importance of the development of the thick network of cross-border and people-to-people programmes in the Baltic Sea region, and they were proud of their shared values, their culture and vision of life that they wanted to preserve and improve upon. Together, they also highlighted the value of practical regional cooperation, including those countries that were not part of the European Union, as well as stable development, public health and social well-being, culture, environmental protection, logistics, the connectivity of people and transport – issues of importance to the normal people in the whole region. Mr Schwab further underlined that the European Parliament was also fully engaged in protecting and improving the environmental health of the Baltic Sea and were in support of the Helsinki Commission, created for this purpose. All Baltic Sea states and the EU had to take prevention measures and immediate actions, showing determination to clean up this heavily polluted sea. They believed that it was necessary to address efficiently by doing so the urgent environmental challenges in that area. For this, he again offered his welcome to the parliamentarians to the European Parliament. He stated his conviction that they all agreed on the need to work together in facing the current challenges in their region as well as his hope that this cooperation would be made even more efficient in the near future. BSPC President Valerijus Simulik thanked for the hospitality of the European Parliament, noting that the working group presided over by Mr Schwab was an important delegation. He further mentioned that more work was incumbent upon said delegation with the United Kingdom now joining the community of states outside EU membership, and the president expected the UK to be added to the other three nations within the remit of that delegation. He opened the meeting of the Standing Committee, pointing out that this was the first such meeting in 2020 and indeed the first session after Brexit. The situation was changing in the European Union, but it was still too early to say how things would pan out. He went on to state that Brussels was an important player in all political affairs. He also hoped and expected that they would work well together at the upcoming BSPC conference in Vilnius which was being prepared. For the Baltic Sea countries, it was of paramount importance what would be discussed both in Vilnius and here in Brussels because their love for the sea truly marked their identity. He also offered his thanks to the representatives from the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the European Commission. Progress Report from the Council of the Baltic Sea States Ms Ida Heimann-Larsen, Chair of the Committee of Senior Officials of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, Denmark, Ambassador Maira Mora , Director General of the CBSS Secretariat and Mr Bernd Hemingway , Deputy Director General of the CBSS Secretariat informed the Standing Committee about the course of implementation of the programme of the Danish presidency at the CBSS and its current activities. Ms Heimann-Larsen started by mentioning that at their last meeting, in Oslo in August at the annual conference of the BSPC, she had noted the overriding priority of the Danish presidency to use its 12 months in the chair of the CBSS to drive through real change in the organisation. The aim was to enable it to regain some of the relevance the organisation used to have in the early 1990s. , namely that there should be more focus and flexibility in the work of the CBSS, that there should be improved cooperation with other regional cooperation formats and that better use should be made of the unique strengths of the CBSS when designing and implementing activities. During the Latvian presidency, considering work had been carried out on how to best achieve these objectives. It had been a major achievement indeed when foreign ministers agreed on a roadmap for reform in Jūrmala last year. Moving from roadmap to reality was the focus of the Danish presidency’s work. The speaker noted that they would be able to present the results by the end of the year when handing over the presidency to Lithuania. Ms Heimann-Larsen spoke about some main goals of Danish presidency in that respect: Firstly , to increase the focus and flexibility of the organisation, they had prepared some new terms of reference for the organisation and the secretariat. This had been done so as to highlight the need for coupling the work of the CBSS to timely and politically prioritised debates in national governments and other international fora. This meant that the ministerial level meetings should be used to ensure a continuous and timely political dialogue in the region on issues of mutual concern with all Baltic Sea states around the table. The discussions would not be limited to the activities that were taking place within the CBSS but would rather use the meeting to speak more broadly, engendering a regional dialogue and embracing cooperation also in various other formats around the Baltic Sea. The second aspect of their reform process was thinking about how to improve cooperation with the many other regional formats active in the region. Most notably, the CBSS had considered how and to which extent it should interact with the European Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and with the Northern Dimension. Getting these relationships right was essential to getting the most out of their regional cooperation. The responsibility here lay within the member states which governed all these three formats. Nonetheless, the CBSS had served as a meeting platform on which to discuss possible policy alignments and best use of resources. The Danish side was very much hoping that the incoming presidency would continue this approach. Beyond the three largest cooperation formats, Ms Heimann-Larsen underlined the existence and value of others. The CBSS could – and should – look into improving its relationships with them as well. This would include other regional councils such as the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Bering Arctic Council, the Arctic Council or HELCOM or VASAB, with very similar setups as intergovernmental organisations. But the CBSS also had many other valued partners, working at different levels. She mentioned such like the Union of the Baltic Cities or the BSSSC. These would be good examples of how they also cooperated with organisations at different levels so as to create real change in the region. Of course, she went on, the political dialogue with the BSPC also offered scope for more cultivation. She suggested that this might require the development of new tools of dialogue between their organisations, tools to ensure a more focused dialogue with a high degree of political backing in the parliaments of the Baltic Sea states. This, she added, also lay at the discretion of the BSPC. Regarding the third reform objective, they had worked at making explicit the unique strengths of the CBSS as a regional actor, ensuring the best possible uses of these strengths when activities were designed. She considered one of these most pronounced, namely the ability to work on projects in an integrated manner, involving all levels from the political actors to interest organisations, municipalities, academics, youth actors and others. Ambassador Maira Mora , Director General of the CBSS Secretariat added an information about the youth at the Annual Forum of the EUSBR which the secretariat was co-organising this year in partnership with Turku City. She confirmed that the engagement of youths would not be as merely invited guests but rather full participants at all stages. They would not be present just for engagement’s sake but rather take part fully in all the deliberations and proceedings of the annual forum. Mr Bernd Hemingway , Deputy Director General of the CBSS Secretariat commented on the question of the migration and integration issue. There had been discussions in the Council, but it had appeared that countries had faced very different challenges. It was his belief that the BSPC had come to the same conclusions. As for the CBSS, their focus for the time being was looking into the demographic factor in particular of an aging population. He clarified that some of the countries of the CBSS were also migration countries, adding to the demographic challenges. But this was the extent of the concerns at the moment for the CBSS; they were not discussing integration as such. The conservation and sustainable use of the oceans Mr Felix Leinemann , European Commission, Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, responsible for Blue Economy Sectors, Aquaculture and Maritime Spatial Planning gave a Progress report on the conservation and sustainable use of the oceans and also took a statement on the BSPC’s recommendations for action in the Oslo resolution, insofar as they relate to maritime policy. He spoke about five topics of particular interest to the BSPC at present, one of them the Commission’s objective for the upcoming UN Oceans conference, the second the effects of Brexit, the third the progress made in combating marine pollution, the fourth the potential dangers from ammunition dumps, and the fifth topic concerning comments regarding the Oslo Resolution. He began with the final topic, noting that the Commission very much appreciated this resolution as a very constructive contribution aimed at protecting the oceans and restoring them wherever possible. Specifically, his side was supporting the goal of developing a legally binding and globally reaching mechanism for managing plastic waste. The European Commission had been quite active in combating single-use plastics. They had come up with a strategy in the previous year, with one of the highlights being the ban of the ten items most frequently found littered on Europe’s beaches, but they were accompanied by several activities aimed at reducing marine littering. For example, the Commission was developing a standard for fishing gear or aquaculture gear, because such gear in its current form was wasteful and could lead to non-targeted fish or marine species becoming entangled in nets. He also noted that these nets could be lost at sea and become a nomadic hazard. For such reasons, they were trying to fit fishing gears with devices that would make it possible to retrieve them much easier than was the case at the moment. In the present, they were relying very much on volunteers or on fishermen who went out with the intent of fishing for litter. Mr Leinemann stressed, though, that this could not be enough. Therefore, they were working further to expand on these areas. The next step would be looking at microplastics from all sources. As with normal plastics, these microplastics did not come from the sea but rather from land, such as the tires of cars on the road, and so it was necessary to address these problems on land. Mr Leinemann pointed out that his Commissioner, Mr Virginijus Sinkevičius, who was also responsible for the environment and not just the oceans, would very much work with the environmental colleagues in this area. Other fields of tackling marine plastics included a new directive on port reception facilities, currently being implemented by all member states. The speaker added that there was a strong international dimension to this issue. The Commission was very much in support of the plans of regional conventions against marine litter. The Baltic Sea Action Plan for management by HELCOM was a good example for collaboration and effectiveness in a given sea basin. The Commission invited all relevant stakeholders, such as NGOs, to actively participate in this action plan. Mr Leinemann noted that the resolution also mentioned maritime spatial planning as an important tool to achieve clean and sustainable oceans. As the speaker himself used to be responsible for spatial planning in the European Commission, he himself very much appreciated this item. Again, with respect to HELCOM and VASAB, the Baltic Sea had become a very successful test bed in addressing maritime spatial planning from a cross-border perspective where different countries were working together. Returning to his work, Mr Leinemann stated that the Commission had been funding two projects so far in this area and would launch a third call this year for a cooperation project in the Baltic Sea region on maritime spatial planning. With regard to Commission’s objectives for the UN Oceans conference which was to take place in June in Lisbon, Portugal, he noted that the lack of improvement over the last five years was reason for serious concern. Looking at the reports on biodiversity or the state of the ocean report by the IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, none of these was painting a good picture. He cautioned that they would fail to meet the targets under the sustainable goal 14 that were due in 2020. Accordingly, this would continue to play an important role in the discussions at the United Nations. They also wanted to ensure that the conference would be successful as well as the implementation of SDG 14. The focus of the UN Ocean Conference was intended to be research and innovation. The European Commission was keen to contribute to this on a wide scale. Around 250 million euros a year were spent by the European Union’s research framework programmes on ocean research. Mr Leinemann said that they could deliver more and that they should do so. For the conference, the Commission had four main goals: They wanted more collaborative action, addressing all sources of pollution, including the plastics he had mentioned earlier. In addition, they wanted to enforce biodiversity laws and provide qualitative assessments of the marine areas which were being or needed to be restored. Thus, the Commission sought to protect these better and to manage them actively – this could be achieved through more protected areas and better management. Moreover, they wanted to ensure more sustainable fisheries and aquacultures, including from an ecosystem perspective. There were climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as nature-based solutions that the Commission was keen to put forward, and the Baltic Sea was very strong in the area of the blue bio economy, for instance working with algae and making use of shellfish as well as other natural resources to clean the sea. This approach had proven successful in some areas, to achieve the maximum available yield in fisheries and to reduce the pressure. Unfortunately, this did not apply to the Baltic Sea but rather in the North Atlantic where they had reached maximum sustainability yield and had seen an increased economic return for fishermen. That was proof for the European Commission that if those who were fishing sustainably, could combine that with economic growth. At the UN Conference, the Commission would also push for action: They could not accept they were already failing that had been set five years earlier, and the Commission would not accept any compromise in this area. At the conference, they would also make sure that it was clear that there was no one-size-fits-all solution; every sea basin could contribute with its own characteristics and assets. The fourth objective for the UN conference was accepting that there were no easy solutions. He qualified this general statement by conceding that there surely were a few easy solutions, but as an overall view, no sustainable solution was easy. Mr Leinemann had mentioned using mussels to clean the waters from eutrophication. This was a possibility, he acknowledged, but it might not work in all situations and settings. The speaker said that there was hope for some programmes, but he cautioned that none should think that the issue would take care of itself naturally and without any outside effort. What was needed was to develop the science, ensure that it worked and then put it into practice. With regard to Brexit, Mr Leinemann noted that one month earlier, the UK had become a third country, but the transition period was still ongoing and would extend until the end of this year. During this period, the United Kingdom was still fully governed by the common fisheries policy; it was part of the common fisheries policy, he clarified, but it did not have any say in it since it was no longer part of the institutions governing this policy. Nonetheless, the European Commission was still working closely with the British and in constant contact, also because there was a deadline in the Withdrawal Agreement that stated that on 1 July 2020, an agreement on fisheries should be in place. Negotiations between the UK and the European Union had started on that day, 2 March 2020, and debates on fisheries were part of that negotiations package. As they had only just begun, Mr Leinemann cautioned that there was nothing he could say about these. They were working based on a mandate from the European Council and were working in close cooperation with the UK taskforce on this issue, so as to make sure that there was a link between the future trade agreement and the fisheries part. The next topic for Mr Leinemann was progress with regard to marine pollution. Considering the recent trends and sources of concern for the Baltic Sea, which had also been outlined in the State of the Environment report published by the European Environmental Agency, there were various pressures from human activities that caused adverse effects on the marine ecosystems: nutrient enrichment from farming, contaminants, bottom trawling, overfishing. The latest assessment by HELCOM showed that 97 per cent of the Baltic Sea was affected by eutrophication, depleting habitats and food webs. Another target planned for 2020 that was unlikely to be met was the good environmental status of the Baltic Sea. Mr Leinemann nonetheless insisted that this should not stop them from recognising that there was progress on some other fronts. They had implemented measures to combat chemical pollution; there was a reduction of contamination and impacts from some hazardous substances, such as PCP, in the marine environment as well as, more generally speaking, a reduction of oil spills. In terms of marine litter, he referred back to the actions the Commission had taken. Although these had not yet resulted in measurable results, Mr Leinemann hoped they would see the results of these actions already implemented in the near future and thus less litter being produced. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive was in place, he noted, serving as an incentive to develop underwater noise monitoring surveys. This had not been studied sufficiently up to this point. Knowing more about this issue, though, would help them work on reducing its impact on the marine environment. In addition, better management of the fish stocks and shellfish stocks had contributed to a clear decrease in the fishing pressure in the Baltic Sea, and there were some signs of recovery in the reproductive capacity of a number of fish stocks. He underlined that this was not a positive development on all fronts but that some fish stocks at least were registering improvements. The efforts to reduce further pressure needed to be intensified. The conservation of Europe’s natural environment was part of the European Green Deal. Accordingly, the success of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive would be instrumental to achieving the EU’s overarching objectives, such as halting the loss of biodiversity in the sea and on land as well as moving towards a zero-pollution society. The Commission was determined to deliver on its zero-pollution ambition for both climate neutrality and a toxic-free environment. For 2021, it intended to adopt a zero-pollution action plan for air, water and soil, with actions that should prevent pollutions from being generated along with measures to clean and remedy existing pollutions. Mr Leinemann went on to tackle the final point he was asked to present about, namely the potential emerging dangers from ammunition dumps in the Baltic Sea and other ocean waters. He stated that this had to be taken seriously, and he appreciated the BSPC doing so as evidenced by the topic surfacing in several reports. The president had also mentioned it during the current meeting. The European Commission supported the text in the Oslo Resolution, calling for more cooperation. The Commission or DG Mare Maritime Affairs had organised a colloquium on the challenges of unexploded munitions in the sea in February of 2019, seeking expert advice from all the various European seas. A further studied would be commissioned to see what could be done very concretely. The new Maritime Security Action Plan included an action point on the disposal and elimination of sea-dumped ammunitions. This was very important not just for the environment as such but also for the development of a blue economy. One point of concern here was for example how to develop offshore wind farms, another was the development of aquaculture that was more sustainable. All such activities tied into the question of whether the sea was actually safe for these construction measures. Progress report and perspectives on the European territorial cooperation and the macro-regional strategies Mr Jean-Pierre Halkin from the Directorate General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission Macro-regions, responsible for Transnational/Interregional cooperation, IPA, Enlargement of the European Commission, informed the Standing Committee on new developments and perspectives on the European territorial cooperation and the macro-regional strategies. Mr Halkin presented a published report on the implementation of the four macro-regional strategies and focused himself on five findings. First was that they had had a very fruitful discussion in the Council in which a very constructive presidency from Romania had supported them. That had led them to innovate this year by organising the first edition of the week of macro-regional strategies. It had been, for the Commission’s side, a good way to feel the pulse of the interest for macro-regional strategies in Brussels. The purpose of this first week had been to encourage the cooperation between the strategies themselves but also the interaction between the stakeholders of the strategies and everyone working in Brussels, in the Council, in the parliament, in the Committee of Regions, economic and social committees and in the Commission itself. For the Commission side, it had been quite a success as they had made it one of the forty thematic weeks of the Commission. The Commission had been quite well represented during this instalment; the Commissioner Elisa Ferreira had been there as had the Deputy DG Normunds Popens and the four directors, including Ms Andersson Pench, and also colleagues from twelve different DGs. It had also been extremely well attended by the member state representatives, for instance, ministers, state secretaries or deputy ministers. Furthermore, it had been a new type of event that they had organised with a social dimension. Thus, it became clear that there was indeed still strong interest in macro-regional strategies. One of the key reasons for this interest was his second finding, namely that everyone was convinced that the strategies remained very relevant. The world was changing faster and faster. They had been speaking about climate change a lot and realised that the way climate change was understood today was very different from five years ago or even just two years earlier. Globalisation had come, the EU had a digital agenda, migration patterns were different – everything was changing quickly. The conviction of all parties had been that the strategies were the right approach to convert uncertainties into opportunities, since root causes or solutions exceeded the administrative border of a member state of the European Union. The third finding Mr Halkin spoke about was the connection between the macro-regional strategies and the new EU priorities. Certainly, for the four macro-regional strategies, there had been a feeling that the new EU priorities offered an opportunity for the strategies. Both of these were already supporting green growth and systemic blue growth. These were completely interconnected. Moreover, it was necessary to connect the coastal regions with the inland regions. The Commission was already supporting the circular economy in transition to a carbon-conserving economy. During the week of macro-regional strategies, they had heard that there were good ways of tailoring the Green Deal to the needs of the regions, buffered by the strategies. That was a very strong message, Mr Halkin stressed. There were also very good ways of speeding up the implementation of the new EU priorities and in particular the Green Deal, in the end increasing the ownership by EU citizens of those initiatives. The fourth finding noted by the speaker was the importance of what they called embedding. That was how the Commission was going to take the priorities of the strategies into the EU programmes. Embedding, he explained, was a technical word but very important, nonetheless. In that regard, they expected the countries participating in the European Union’s Baltic Sea region to pave the way and be the forerunners for the four macro strategies. Embedding was something totally new. The Commission was aware that many actions were already taking place to put the strategies into motion, but they had to do more. They needed to make sure that in all national programmes and regional programmes, the priorities of the strategies were reflected where it was appropriate. The Commission had seen a great deal of interest in embedding, and that was a very strong signal. Representatives of managing authorities – those who were going to translate the plans into concrete action – had been present at the event and were interested in making sure that the strategy was enacted and was indeed moving forward. On the Commission’s side, Mr Halkin noted, they certainly encouraged this as well as the connection with all EU funds, including those put in direct management like Horizon Europe or the programme for life sciences. He added that it was very important to be sure that they were connecting to the right persons, to the changemakers. These were the people operating the programmes, extremely dedicated civil servants who were working very hard. Still, it was necessary to help them be connected among themselves, within the countries, within the regions and among the regions. That had to be supported, he underlined, and a strong signal in that direction was required. Surely, they were already taking the first actions, but government encouragement was needed. Moving to the last finding, Mr Halkin spoke about the need to reengage with the political class. That was also vital. They had established macro-regional strategies under the inspiration of the countries of the Baltic Sea region in order to address challenges that were otherwise lacking political support. They were furthermore aware that political control rested in the states contributing to the strategy from all sides, and he also had to mention Norway and Russia in this regard. Good politicians at the start of their mandates needed to take on board new priorities, and in order to do that, they had to identify lesser priorities so that they could create space for the more pressing ones. There had to be a constant fight, a constant push in order to keep the strategies on the agenda. That mattered very much, he highlighted. In that regard, Mr Halkin mentioned the Baltic Sea Council which would co-chair the Forum of the Baltic Sea Region in Turku, on 16 – 17 June. This forum would prove very important for reengaging the representatives of the political level, and it was vital for ministers to be there. It was equally important for young people to participate in this process, and Mr Halkin noted that he had been very encouraged to see the first draft of the agenda of the forum as it was designed for the people who would in the end be operating the strategies and making sure that they would be successful. In conclusion, Mr Halkin noted that there had been a very strong convergence of the former regional strategies during the week of macro-regional strategies. He believed it vital for these strategies to keep moving together after this first meeting. Mr Halkin further highlighted that parliaments could also remain extremely vital catalysts in the implementation of the strategies. For some strategies, the parliaments had set up priority action funds for pilot projects, even though their resources were extremely limited compared to the regional policies; nonetheless, these were transformational. The overall goal was not just to achieve blue growth or green growth but rather to ensure that trust and confidence among the EU citizens were strengthened, and it was here that parliamentary support proved vital. Following their presentations, the representatives of the CBSS and the European Commission discussed questions, comments and statements from the Standing Committee on the issues raised in the presentations. BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration Mr Pyry Niemi , informed about the progress on the Working Group’s report. The aim was to distribute a first draft of the final report to all delegations by 7 April and to receive comments, remarks and further proposals by 23 April, so that the report could be discussed conclusively during the planned meeting in Mariehamn. The report will then be forwarded to the Annual Conference in Vilnius. New BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity Ms Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby the upcoming chairwoman of the planned new BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity informed that the first draft of how the working group should function had been prepared. The plan was to have several meetings in the Baltic Sea area, looking for best practices. Focus areas had been established. In the case of the new group, one such focus area was how to meet the target from the UN. She saw a need to explore how the biodiversity was being affected and how they could adapt to these effects of climate change on biodiversity. The third focus point was almost more important, she noted, as their goal was to have an optimistic view on these issues. The working group should set out to beat climate change, although it could not accomplish this task all the way. They had to adapt to climate change, they wanted to preserve biodiversity, but they had to meet the changes in biodiversity. Moreover, this should be done with an optimistic tone, aiming to use the technology already available in a good way. That was the current plan, she concluded, noting that they were open for further input. Rapporteurs Peter Stein informed the Standing Committee on his activities and his further plans as BSPC Rapporteur on Sea-Dumped Munitions and made suggestions regarding experts during the annual conference. BSPC Finances The Standing Committee approved the 2019 Financial Report including the Financial Result as per the Fourth Quarter of 2019 as well as the budget plan proposal for 2020. The Financial Report was published on the BSPC website. The 29 th BSPC, Vilnius, 23-25 August 2020 BSPC President Valerijus Simulik once more invited the members of the BSPC to the annual conference in Vilnius. He underlined that they would have to work there. Welcoming them as friends, they were looking forward to continue working with each other in Vilnius in their conference. The attendees would arrive on 22 August 2020, with the meeting of the Drafting Committee and the Standing Committee set for 23 August 2020. On 24 August, a very special opening ceremony was expected as the President of the Republic of Lithuania had sent a confirmation that he would attend the ceremony. The Speaker of the Parliament would participate as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Danish minister of foreign affairs as well as the Norwegian Minister of Foreign affairs, had also been invited. The topic suggested by the Lithuanian Presidency was to work on a strategy for 2030, the future of the Baltic Sea region. The first session was set on the Vision 2030 and the development of the Baltic Sea region. For the second part, Vision 2030 on seas and oceans the EU Commissioner was expected to attend. The third topic was migration and integration, in which the working group would provide a report. The following day, 25 August 2020, would deal with science and technology as a driving force behind the development of the Baltic Sea region. He proposed that the president and the vice-presidents, would sign the BSPC resolution. The Swedish Presidency 2020/2021 BSPC Vice-President Pyry Niemi, Chairman of the Swedish Delegation to the BSPC, informed that the Swedish delegation was currently in the process of creating a draft proposal to be presented in Vilnius, at the Standing Committee meeting. Due to the fact that the Swedish parliament and the general right to vote in the country was now one hundred years old, with a century of democracy in Sweden, that would be a focus of the Swedish presidency. More specifically, it would concentrate on sustainable democracy and how to face a changing world. In some countries, it could be seen that the space for democracy was shrinking; therefore, the Swedish delegation suggested to focus on sustainable democracy, with some major elements and issues that would be presented in Vilnius. Further topics of the Standing Committee meeting among others included the Follow-up to the 28 th BSPC Resolution.

The BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration held its eighth meeting on the premises of the German Bundestag in Berlin. Participants from Åland, the Baltic Assembly, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, the German Bundestag, Hamburg, Lithuania – represented by the BSPC President Valerijus Simulik -, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Nordic Council, Poland, Russia and Sweden attended the meeting. Chaired by Hans Wallmark, Sweden, Chairman of the Working Group, and welcomed by the Head of the German Bundestag’s delegation to the BSPC Johannes Schraps, the participants discussed expert presentations as well as the next meeting and the elaboration of the Final Report for the BSPC Annual Conference in Vilnius. The overall theme of the meeting was unaccompanied minors alongside the topics Managing Migration, Border Control and Return as well as Sustainable Management of Migration and Integration Policies. The Working Group vividly discussed four expert presentations and agreed on the structure and main themes of the final report. Expert presentations Prof Dr Stefan Thomas from the University of Applied Science, Potsdam, held a presentation with the title “Understanding and Supporting Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children and Young People”. Prof Thomassaid that the exceptional migration flows during 2015 and 2016 had resulted in a lot of unaccompanied minors in Germany. These minors would stay in Germany for the next 50, 60 and 70 years, and it was therefore of utmost importance to find solutions for both migration and integration. Prof Thomas had conducted interviews with unaccompanied minors andpresented some of the main findings from his study. Primarily, this was that the institutional and legal circumstances of the German Youth Service system were highly standardised, and the standard of youth welfare was very high, but there was a lack of integration of the minors into social life in Germany. The findings of the current study indicated that integration into social life in Germany succeeded rather seldomly. The unaccompanied minors who had participated in the study experienced exclusion, discrimination and racism in their everyday lives. The minors were also at risk of inactivity since they did not have much to do apart from school. Contact with German peers and a welcoming culture in the country was essential for integration. Another aspect pointed out by Prof Thomaswas stress and pressure on the unaccompanied minors. Earlier traumas were relevant, but the study showed that most of the stress and pressure the minors were subject to concerned the situation in their current lives. Another finding of the study was that the minors were wishing for a job and an apartment, establishing an independent conduct of life. Prof Thomas concluded by saying that it was a common view that unaccompanied minors were in need of therapy to be able to deal with their traumas, but his study showed that the need and the wish for a job and an opportunity to stand on their own two feet were much stronger. Ms Ulrike Schwarz , a legal expert at the National Association for Unaccompanied Refugee Minors, held a presentation with the title “ Understanding and Meeting the Legal Needs of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children and Young People”. The National Association for Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (BumF) is a small NGO advocating for the rights of refugee children and young adults in Germany. Their projects are financed by the EU and are aimed at improving the reception conditions for unaccompanied minor refugees through training of professionals in the field of social work, family law and asylum. As Ms Schwarz explained, the most significant countries of origin for unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Germany were Guinea, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Iraq and Eritrea. These countries differed from the general statistics where Syria was the primary country of origin for asylum seekers in Germany. Ms Schwarz noted that the general protection for unaccompanied minors was quite high in Germany, placing the interests of the child at the centre. The safety net protecting the minor consisted of a relationship triangle, where the Youth Welfare Office, the care person and the guardian/legal representative each were playing an essential part. The Youth Welfare Office supported the minor until the Family Court appointed a guardian. The YWO was also responsible for clearing the minor, a process which usually took about three months. During the clearing process, many aspects were assessed; health, education, personal development (physically as well as psychologically), possible caretaking facility, family ties, trafficking issues, asylum application and the question who should be the legal guardian. The clearing process was of great importance since that formed the basis for further applications, negotiations and hearings. The family court had to confirm that the legal requirements for guardianship did apply: The minor should be underage and unaccompanied. The court then appointed a guardian as part of its responsibility to monitor the guardianship and if necessary, end or change the guardianship. Ms Katrin Hirseland , head of research at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, held a presentation about “ Managing Migration, Border Control and Return”. Ms Hirseland presented the main tasks of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees: the asylum procedure and the Dublin procedure, resettlement and humanitarian reception, migration, integration, voluntary return, internationals tasks, security issues, digitisation and research. The office implemented a new approach after 2015 because of a new legal basis. In June 2019 a new migration package was adopted in Germany – which would take effect in March of the current year 2020 – including stronger return policies and regulations for labour market integration of asylum seekers. Ms Hirseland presented some statistics about immigrants in Germany, concluding that the leading immigrant group was EU-internal migration. Other significant groups consisted of international university students, family reunification and asylum applications. The central countries of origins were Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. The number of applicants had been very high around 2015-2016 but had decreased since then. In 2019, 166,000 people had sought asylum in Germany. About 38 % of them had obtained a positive response. Germany had implemented temporary border controls since 2015, intended to prevent illegal entries and enable early registration for asylum seekers. Another aspect of migration policy was promoting returns. There were two types of returns: voluntary and forced returns. The challenge in return number was that they did not match the number of legal obligations to leave Germany. Forced returns had doubled since the beginning of the mass influx in 2014. One example of Germany tackling the return challenge was the Assisted Return Programme providing support to the migrants for travelling, medical assistance and accommodation. One of the conclusions of the work with a return policy was that financial incentives often were not the primary return motivation but could encourage people who were already thinking about returning. The final presentation, “Sustainable Management of Migration and Integration Policies “, was held by Prof Dr Lars Castellucci , from the University of Applied Management Studies. Prof Castellucci is also an MP in the German Bundestag. Prof Castellucci presented several numbers to illustrate the migration flows today and in the past: In 2018, there were 258 million migrants in the world. 2.5 % of the population had been migrants in 1965 compared to 3.3 % of the world population today. The birth rate in Europe in total was 1.6, and 11 billion people were the estimated number of people in the world in the year 2100. According to Prof Castellucci, people earning more than 2,000 USD per year but less than 10,000 USD per year were most likely to migrate. People with this income had the financial ability to move but at the same time not enough money to live a decent life, thus fostering a wish to move to a better place with other opportunities. Prof Castellucci commented that we should not just let migration happen, not attempt to prevent it but instead try to handle it. Prof Castellucci also informed on the new migration law that was intended to allow skilled workers to come to Germany. Conceptually, it gave the country the opportunity to attract skilled workers from all around the globe and served as an addition to a previous act aimed only at highly qualified workers with high salaries. Further on, Prof Castellucci commented on the triple-win-effect. As an example, he brought up the issue of nurses from abroad. The idea was to attract such nurses only from countries that had a surplus of them, rather than stealing the skilled labour from nations where they were also needed. That, the professor pointed out, was not a win-win scenario but rather a lose-win case. He saw the triple-win model created by present German policy as an indication that it could be achieved: The migrants would win, with better living perspectives. The labour market and the country would win as the currently severe shortage of nurses would be resolved. The countries of origin would win through readmittances and by Germany respecting the needs of their labour markets. The professor voiced his opinion that this model should be applied to other sectors as well. That would require an organisation like the World Health Organisation to monitor these labour markets. As large as this issue was, he felt it was necessary to move from sector to sector with the aid of an institution that provided them with the requisite data enabling solutions that were good for the many and not the few. Regarding asylum, the main issue is to enforce the laws that Germany has. He also stressed the importance of distinguishing between those in need and those able to return. Prof Castellucci addressed the question of integration, pointing to the importance of fundamental needs as food, shelter, education, but also getting in touch with other people. The Working Group had a lively debate with the experts on the issues raised in the presentations and possible recommendations for action. The Working Group confirmed that it would hold one more meeting on 27-28 April 2020 in Mariehamn. The meeting will focus on the details of the working group’s final report and further calls to action for the 29 th annual conference of the BSPC in Vilnius. Following the working group meeting, the BSPC Secretary Level prepared the Standing Committee meeting in Brussels on 2 March 2020. Prof Dr Stefan Thomas: Presentation Ulrike Schwarz: Presentation Katrin Hirseland : Presentation

Valerijus Simulik addressed the 54 th plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation in his capacity as President of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and at the same time in his position as Vice-President of the Baltic Assembly. He underlined the close cooperation between the BSPC and the PABSEC – marked by the joint memorandum of understanding, the regular mutual participation in each other Parliamentary Assemblies in recent years, as well as the intensive consultation of both Standing Committees on safeguarding the oceans in April this year in Istanbul. In particular, Valerijus Simulik emphasised: “Our Baltic and Black Seas are distant by geographical location, but the efforts of our organisations are close in aims and mission. We share a similar vision that parliaments have a significant role in ensuring peace and security in the region, the rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as promoting economic, cultural and educational cooperation between states. Our regional organisations are an excellent platform for discussions and problem solving for a long-term perspective. We have proven to be an effective framework for promoting development and growth in our regions. I firmly believe that regional institutions have a significant role in solving regional and global problems, as well as promoting economic growth. We all know that quite often the answer for single country challenges can be solved with a regional approach. We cannot mitigate climate change, and we cannot fight against organised crime, and we cannot deal with cyber threats only with the resources of a single country. Joining of forces is very important.” He furthermore informed the PABSEC about the main topics of the 28 th BSPC in Oslo: The visions of the Baltic Sea countries on the future of working life and the jointly discussed issue of safeguarding the oceans: ”We addressed far-reaching calls for action to our governments on these issues and also discussed migration and integration°. He also pointed out the main BSPC issues for the upcoming year: “Our Lithuanian presidency isgrounded on four main priorities: First, Innovation drift by science and technology; Second, Improving digital cooperation: On the way to Digital Baltic; Third, Peaceful and reliable neighbourliness as well as intense cooperation; And fourthly, Migration and integration, finding solutions based on mutual information and best practices. We will work to boost innovation through science and technology to achieve better-added value in economic and social development. We need innovative impulses not only to increase our prosperity but also to protect our climate.” In the margins of the session, BSPC President and BSPC Secretary General discussed possibilities for joint consultations and further activities with PABSEC representatives.

The highest Executive Committee of the BSPC, led by the new President of the BSPC, Valerijus Simulik, held its first meeting under the Lithuanian Presidency in the German Bundestag. Delegations from the Baltic Assembly, Finland, the German Bundestag, Hamburg, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Nordic Council, Norway, Poland, the Russian Federation and Sweden participated in the meeting. Commemoration on the Fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall In his opening address BSPC President Valerijus Simulik underlined that it was something special to be in Berlin on those very days; as the 9 th November and the days following were of particular importance for Germany and beyond. The Fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago had greater meaning for the whole of Europe. As such, he was thankful to share the commemoration of that event with the German people. 9 November was not only the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall but also of several other key events, such as the proclamation of the Weimar Republic 101 years earlier in Berlin. Johannes Schraps, Head of the German Bundestag delegation to the BSPC , recalled in his welcoming words the various events on 9 November in German History. These days, there was no better place in his mind to host such a meeting than in Berlin because of the history associated with 9 November. More than just celebrating the 30 th anniversary of the Berlin Wall, that day was a special date in German history beyond the events of 1989. Other years had also seen important moments happen on that day. Perhaps the first such was in 1919 when Philipp Scheidemann, a social democrat, announced the first republic in Germany. As a matter of fact, he did that from a balcony in this very building. But dark hours of the nation’s history were also associated with that date because 9 November 1938 saw the so-called “Night of the Broken Glass” when the Nazis in Germany burned down the synagogues in Berlin and all over Germany, starting the process of taking away all Jews in Europe. With that dark time associated with the date, 9 November was not just a day of remembering the unification of Germany but also the terrible times of the country’s history. In Mr Schraps’s opinion, it was important to do so in order to avoid living through something like that again. One should also keep in mind that 9 November was a day that made it possible for the parliamentarians of the Baltic Sea region to meet on this day. Of course, the Fall of the Iron Curtain extended beyond the Berlin Wall being abolished and included the developments in the Baltic countries, such as the Baltic Way that also saw its 30 th anniversary in this year. Eastern Europe had equally contributed to this process, in Hungary, in what was then Czechoslovakia as well as Poland with Solidarnocz and not least Russia with Glasnost and Perestroika. All of these developments made it possible to come together and make the Cold War a matter of the past. Presentations concerning sea-dumped munitions threat The Standing Committee already dealt with the topic in depth at its previous meetings in Hamburg and in Oslo. A paragraph on the issue has been included in the 28 th BSPC in Oslo resolution (call on the governments to … 24. with regard to the detection of unexploded ordnance and buried/deposited ammunition present in the Baltic Sea, and with reference to current HELCOM activities, work together and develop a cross-border, sustainable strategy for dealing with this,… ) Therefore, the presentation by the Managing Director of EGEOS GmbH (Amucad), Mr Jann Wendt , on the discovery of munitions waste in the Baltic Sea and the presentation by Ms Anne Jacobs-Schleithoff , Head of Division Maritime Industry, Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy about the project “Ammunition salvage in the sea”, attracted a great deal of interest from the members of the Standing Committee. Mr Jann Wendt , stated that the topic of ammunitions dumped in the sea was not a Baltic Sea or a North Sea problem but rather a worldwide concern. Such dumps were present along the coast of Japan as well as Australia, to name just these two. Certainly, though, the large-scale bombing campaigns during World War II in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea had created a considerable problem for these water bodies. Mr Wendt noted that numerous wars had been fought over the territory adjacent to the Baltic Sea. However, the impacts of World Wars I and II had been extraordinary. Ammunitions were entering the water in different ways, he said. One cause was naval warfare, i.e. battles on the water surface but also military training which, he underlined, equally caused tremendous impact. There was also deliberate ammunitions dumping, especially after World War II. He further differentiated that there were two types of ammunition in question here. There were on the one hand the chemical warfare agents; after World War II, the Baltic Sea had been used as a dumping site. Currently, expectations ran to some 40,000 tonnes of chemical warfare agents in the Baltic Sea. The main areas were the Little Belt, the Bornholm and Gotland Deep. Furthermore, a recent research project had determined that another dumping area for chemical agents was in the Gdansk deep. Mr Wendt explained more about these agents which included tabun, mustard gas, Lewisite, Adamsite, arsine oil. These are uptaken by breathing, skin contact and other ways of entering the body. Based on data gathered by HELCOM, a map he presented showed the sites of accidents with chemicals since the 1980s. Mostly, these concerned fishermen trawling and fishing and taking ammunitions on board, leading to injuries. Moreover, the map showed a wide concentration of such accidents around the Bornholm Deep, but due to the enterogenic effect, the trawling itself, the ammunitions were spread out, all over the sea. Another important topic gaining more and more awareness was in fact conventional ammunition. While most of the conversation concerned chemical warfare, Mr Wendt underlined that the problem with conventional ammunitions was at an even larger scale. In the Baltic Sea, in the German EZ, there were around 300,000 tonnes of conventional ammunition. These included nearly 100,000 mines that had been placed during World Wars I and II in the Baltic Sea, a huge amount as he stressed. Nonetheless, he conceded that the numbers were quite uncertain. More investigations into naval warfare were needed, to determine what had been dismantled and what had been recovered. Mr Wendt noted that recovery operations had occurred especially in Germany after World War II. There were different training and battle exercises. What also had to be understood better was the topic of ammunition dumping itself. There was some information available, but it was quite scarce. He proceeded to show some pictures of ammunition dumping, mentioning that it had been handled on an industrial scale. Ammunitions had been loaded onto ships and dumped into the sea. Mr Wendt also provided under-water pictures, giving an example of a site 175 m below the surface, showing a small box of projectiles. The area had been mapped by the Geomar Institute which had found millions of projectiles in boxes such as these that had been cast into the water. Mr Wendt also gave an example of a British ground mine under water. In this case, because of the thickness of the casing, that mine was in relatively good condition and resisting corrosion. But with thinner casing, the corrosion could lead to such cases as a fully opened anchorage mine he presented next. The TNT explosive charge had already been washed out of the casing entirely. The next step was also chronicled by Mr Wendt, showing a picture of a diver collecting biosamples in an area with disseminated TNT on the sea floor. Said TNT was very toxic, the speaker underlined. He further mentioned that hard substrates in the Baltic Sea were usually taken up directly by flora and fauna. In this case, the TNT was so toxic that no marine biology had even attempted to settle on it. Mr Wendt continued to speak about the risks of ammunitions, such as safety and security. In the North Sea, in 2013, a Norwegian tanker had hooked a torpedo with its anchor. At this point, the tanker had held a cargo of 1,000 tonnes of oil. Another example from 2017 concerned a floating mine from World War II which had been discovered intact near an offshore windfarm, causing serious problems because of the rough weather making the demolition difficult. He went on to note a 2014 example of a child along the Northern Germany coast in Holstein. The child had played what it had thought to be a stone but this had turned out to be so-called “schießwolle”, which might be translated as gun cotton, but Mr Wendt cautioned that this was not quite accurate. The item in question was a mixture of TNT, aluminium and HND. This had caused severe skin irritation in the child. The speaker continued with an example of a man injured while collecting amber on the beach. He noted that this problem had received some treatment by the media, namely that white phosphorus from incendiary bombs which looked almost exactly like amber. Even for experts, it was extremely difficult to tell both apart. At an air temperature of roughly 25 °C, white phosphorus would start self-igniting, burning at 1,300 °C. In 2016, the amber collector had been seriously injured because he had put the white phosphorus in his pockets where it ignited, and there had been no chance of extinguishing the fire. The speaker moved on to yet another drastic example which he had found in the HELCOM records. This one dated from 1955 when 102 children had been heavily injured. They had been playing with a rusting barrel containing sulphur mustard on the beach. All of these examples, Mr Wendt said, made clear how severe the threat to safety and security was. Of even greater concern, the speaker underlined, was the environmental threat. Safety and security was easy to understand but environmental threats were quite abstract and difficult to understand. Due to the recent research projects the speaker’s company was involved in, it had turned out that the environmental impact was even greater than thought before. He stated one example from the UDEMM (Umweltmonitoring für die Delaboration von Munition im Meer/ UDEMM – Hydrodynamic observations and simulations of munition in the sea as subproject of the collaborative project “Environmental monitoring for the delaboration of munitions in the seabed https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjlx8Wk_63mAhWB8aYKHVt8B9cQFjACegQIARAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fudemm.geomar.de%2F&usg=AOvVaw2wQWP1GI29q7HIS07VJHL-) andRoBEMM (Robotic underwater salvage and disposal process with the technology to remove explosive ordnance in the sea, in particular in coastal and shallow waters https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=2ahUKEwjlx8Wk_63mAhWB8aYKHVt8B9cQFjAEegQIBRAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ict.fraunhofer.de%2Fcontent%2Fdam%2Fict%2Fen%2Fdocuments%2Fmedia%2Fes%2FES_Robotisches_Unterwasser_Bergungs-_und_Entsorgungsverfahren_V02_en.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1IS-U_SGV-A-oU6VxArUpN) projects when experiments on mussels had been carried out near Kiel. On a map, Mr Wendt showed the locations of under-water craters caused by bombs as well as corroding mines. Mussels had been placed next to these mines, and the animals had showed an uptake of TNT into their organisms where the TNT had been metabolized into ADNT. The speaker underlined that this was actually even more toxic. Interestingly, an amount of 5-8 nanograms was found near the bombs, and Mr Wendt noted that a single molecule of TNT could be cancerogenic. While stressing that the presence of TNT near the bombs was relatively tiny, the bomb craters yielded fifty times greater amounts. Therefore, the most important conclusion was to avoid bomb blasts. Such blasts distributed all the remaining TNT in the water column; he noted that not all the explosive in the bomb was consumed by the blast. Mr Wendt noted an example from the DAIMON project, investigating flatfish, specifically the common dab. Dab were caught near a dumping site around Kiel, close to Heidkate. Flatfish were of interest because of their territorial nature, staying in the ground for prolonged periods of time. Most likely, these fish had spent all of their lives at the dumping ground. The researchers found that the dab showed 25 per cent of microscopic liver lumps, with 17 per cent identified as tumors. These could be clearly correlated to the ammunitions dumped in the sea. A reference site with respective dab caught showed only 5 per cent. As such, there was proof that ammunitions were entering the food chain. The speaker went on to mention another example from the DAIMON project. In the Skagerrak, various kinds of ships had been sunk, coming to rest at a depth of around 800 metres. Organisms in this area had also been investigated. Lobster, lamprey and cod were caught and proved to have remnants of Clark 1 and Clark 2 diphenylamine, which were also chemical warfare agents. After these examples, Mr Wendt spoke about the projects of his own company, namely the Ammunitions Cadastre Sea (Amucad). The Cadastre had already been developed in 2011 as a proof of concept. The idea was to map everything that was related to World War II and derive a deep understanding of what they were facing. In the last years, there had been brand-new developments of new modules, ideas and projects based on the available resources. Amucad, he stressed, still had no public funding; it was rather financed by research money and the resources of EGEOS. It was a unique approach – something similar did not exist in the European research community. The good thing about Amucad, he said, was that it knew no borders. In this context, that was very important because ammunitions likewise did not recognize borders. The project was not legally bound to some institution for mapping areas; therefore, they approached all areas. Regarding its general functionality, Mr Wendt said that they were combining worldwide historic and modern data sets, building a web-based software allowing easy access by different stakeholders. Information was thus made easily available. In capturing modern and historic data sets, they were managing large-scale information – which would be called “Big Data” in IT buzzwords -, and they were analyzing data with spatial and non-spatial relationships. The plan was to later use the system to monitor dumping sites. Their goal was to understand the changes the dump sites were causing to the environment in the long term. He went on to specify how they included measurements. Regarding the historic data and information, Mr Wendt underlined that this was key to understanding the legacy of ammunitions. Millions and millions of documents were scattered throughout the archives all over the world. As an example, he noted the archive in Freiburg, Germany, which housed fifty kilometres of documents. This was a huge amount which nobody could handle. Furthermore, there was quite the diversity to these documents, some offering good quality information, but others were hard to understand, written in specific naval languages (concerning abbreviations and terminology) that were not easy to decipher. Nonetheless, the analysis of these historical documents provided them with highly important information. For example, 1,500 historical maps had been fed into the system. He showed one such map, a British naval map with information on where ground mines had been dropped by airplanes. Mr Wendt stated that the British had documented these activities quite well: Accordingly, they knew about the locations, about the types of ammunition and even the pilot who had dumped them. Regarding the map, he pointed out that each of the circled locations could hold up to 100 mines. Most of these were still in place, Mr Wendt added. With the system, they would later be able to combine all of this information to search for specific ammunitions or document specific areas. He proceeded to show a root network of the Germans who had tried to keep the straits free of ammunitions because these had been needed for shipping routes. Accordingly, they had been cleaning them of ammunitions. The respective documents had been found in southern Germany, dating presumably to 1944 and encompassing 100 pages. These had been digitized by Amucad and added to the map. Combining this information with the British data on mining operations, it turned out that – at least – the routes were not that secret. The British had known exactly where they had been throwing the mines, specifically dropping them into the shipping lanes. For Mr Wendt and his team, this was very important information as they could go first to these locations to map and verify what was still there. Modern data, he underlined, was very important to recognize the risks they were facing. In his presentation, he showed different data sets, such as bathing grounds – i.e. tourism -, infrastructure – concerning cables like Northstream -, but they also included information like IAS data on modern shipping routes and traffic. It was even more interesting to put all of this on top of each other. The modern shipping lanes were quite close to the historic ones and thus still in proximity to ammunition littered across the sea floor. Given the immediate danger, that provided a good indication where to check first. Mr Wendt said this was not just a system for managing modern and historic data but rather a platform. Amucad lay at the centre of a network dealing with lots of European research projects. Some of these he briefly introduced. First, he spoke about the DAIMON (Decision Aid for Marine Munitions) project which was funded by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region with roughly five million euros, involving institutes all over the Baltic Sea. The idea behind the project was to analyse the fish regarding ammunition compounds, developing toolboxes for monitoring and also developing artificial intelligence-based decision support systems. DAIMON decided to join the Amucad platform with its system and approach, since there had been nothing like Amucad before. Mr Wendt presented information on how DAIMON was implemented. The project brought together data from all kinds of different sources, including the shipping traffic mentioned before but also information on species distribution, biodiversity. Experts used this data to conduct risk assessments. Together with Polish partners, Amucad had implemented some modelling of the distribution of toxic compounds from ammunitions. All this information was collected into a report which was fed into an artificial intelligence support system to identify which threats were present, such as the types of ammunition. This process also provided more deep insight into how the latter system could be improved and how it should assist in the decision-making process. As such, it could serve as a mutual starting point for discussions about the specific ammunition findings. Another project Amucad was directly involved in was the so-called North Sea Reg project. While it did not encompass the Baltic Sea region, it had similar concerns. The Interreg North Sea Programme funded it with nearly 4 million euros, with a number of large partners. As part of this project, Amucad was directly mapping the shipwrecks and investigating the surrounding ammunitions. Here, they were conducting statistical assessments as well. Another considerable aspect was organising an exhibition for the German Maritime Museum which also travelled around Europe. The North Sea Reg project had also decided to join the Ammunition Cadastre Sea so that it could serve as the interface for the project. Mr Wendt continued with a project that EGEOS GmbH had applied for, a Schleswig-Holstein-funded project called ERPAD (E xtraktion R äumlicher P ositionen A us historischen D okumenten). They were automatically extracting historic positions from historic documents by processing these with artificial intelligence and extracting relevant information through the AI process. He reiterated that there were millions of documents in the archives, so there needed to be a systematic approach to obtain all the information. The speaker noted that they were still in the research phase for this project, but he considered the outlook to be good for a full implementation. The relevant data drawn from the archives was transferred to a map for further analysis. He went on to describe the so-called BASTA (B oost A pplied munition detection trough S mart data in T egration and A I) project which would be launched in December 2019. EGEOS along with GeoMar and Belgian colleagues had applied for this project which was part of the European Maritime Fisheries Fund. BASTA concerned complex data-based ammunition detection plus map integration and AI. This meant that the historic data they were capturing was used for the operations of an autonomous under-water vehicle equipped with sensors which was then sent to these specific locations. There, it would try to detect and classify information about munitions objects. This would provide a better understanding of what was actually in place on the ground. Mr Wendt’s team had also defined qualification metrics for the industry because the latter required standards to deal with this topic. Data management and extracted information entered the Cadastre Sea Project. Mr Wendt mentioned that there were many more programmes he could speak about but considered this a sufficient overview for the moment. As such, he moved on to the conclusion, stating that they were only now beginning to truly understand the threat from sea-dumped ammunitions. The safety and security threat was clear and non-abstract. The environmental threat, though, was quite abstract, and the research along with the measurements that had now become possible enabled them to fully understand what ammunitions meant at the present and what they would mean for the future. In the last years, Mr Wendt had seen that responsible entities in the governments were needed as well as intensive national and international collaboration. In that regard, he mentioned the Expert Group on Sea Munitions in Schleswig-Holstein. What was equally clear was that the window of opportunity to change the situation was closing. The ammunitions were corroding. It was expected that in twenty or thirty years, large-scale corrosion would be being releasing the chemicals into the sea. But beyond the release of the chemicals, there was another problem. If corrosion deteriorated the iron of the casings, there was no way to detect these ammunitions anymore. At this point, at least, TNT could not be detected on a large scale. Accordingly, maps were needed to determine where ammunitions were located, before they corroded. The Ammunitions Cadastre Sea was playing a central role in bringing all of this information together, combining research from different kinds of areas and also putting together stakeholders. He stressed the importance of the last point. Jann Wendt Presentation on the discovery of munitions waste in the Baltic Sea: https://www.bspc.net/2019-11-11_bspc_amucad/ Ms Anne Jacobs-Schleithoff – Head of the coordinating office of the German Federal Government Coordinator for the Maritime Industry, Mr Norbert Brackmann, as well as Head of the office for Maritime Industry, informed that the office for Maritime Industry was mostly focused on funding programmes for shipyards, developing maritime technologies and dealing with strategic questions on how to orient the maritime policy of the German government. Within their funding programmes, they were financing the development of technology to detect and removing ammunition in the Baltic Sea. It was estimated, as had already mentioned in the presentation before, that some 1.5 million tonnes of mines, bombs and other ammunitions dating back to World Wars I and II were either lying on the seabed or buried in sediment layers of the German North Sea and the Baltic Sea. They were posing a hazard for fishermen and often contained chemicals harmful to the marine environment. In addition, ammunitions-polluted areas were contributing to increasing costs in developing offshore windfarms. On average, this meant additional costs of around three to four million euros accrued for a typical medium-sized windfarm. Offshore wind energy was a key element of the German government’s energy transition policy, the so-called “Energiewende”. As of this time, detecting and removing ammunitions from larger areas of sea floor was a long and costly procedure with high risks for the involved personnel, especially the divers. Therefore, the German federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy had reflected the need to develop new technology to efficiently and safely detect as well as defuse and remove ammunitions from offshore locations. This project was part of the German Maritime Research Strategy 2025 and played a vital role in the cross-sector research topic of maritime value, encompassing security, energy and resource supplies from the oceans. In the Maritime Research Programme, which served as the funding instrument of the Maritime Research Strategy 2025, automatized detection and clean-up of ammunitions dump areas in the sea was one of the declared innovation paths where technology development through research and development projects was needed. They were also cooperating with other European countries to foster technology development in this field. Among many other topics, there were also calls for proposals in EU co-funding programmes like the ERA-NET Cofund MarTERA, addressing technologies for detection and removal of munitions. The third MarTERA transnational call will be published in early December 2019, and they were going to support this call with a substantial budget from their federal budget. So far, they had granted almost eleven million euros in financing for projects that aimed to develop relevant technologies to improve the detection and removal of munitions in the sea. Ms Jacobs-Schleithoff offered a couple of examples of the projects they were funding, such as SOAM, concerning AUV-based sensor and data analysis methods to improve the level of confidence, with 1.8 million euros of funding. She also mentioned the RoBEMM project which she would talk about more in detail later in her presentation. This project dealt with the automated excavation, removal and defusing of large pieces of munition on the seabed, with funding of 3.4 million euros. The MISO-Inspector project researched a contact-free chemical analysis of potential objects, funded at 1.6 million euros. EXTENSE, the sensor platform for the detection of objects buried up to 5 metres deep in the sediments, was provided with 1.2 million euros. Marine-EM was a system for the detection of low- and antimagnetic munitions across large-scale areas of the sea floor, with funding of 0.3 million euros. Concluding her brief overview of projects was UWSensor, optical real-time 3D survey of structures and objects under water, funded at 2.5 million euros. The speaker pointed out that there already was a larger effort by the German government to fund, promote and foster these kinds of technologies. Next, Ms Jacobs-Schleithoff went into detail on the afore-mentioned project RoBEMM, one of the projects that had been successfully completed recently. The name was an acronym which stood for the German “Robotisches Unterwasser-Bergungs- und Entsorgungsverfahren” (in English Robotic Under-Water Recovery and Disposal Procedure), including technology to decommission ammunitions in the sea, especially in shallow water and coastal areas. The project had been finished at the end of March 2019 and had received a sum of 3.4 million euros in funding through the Maritime Research Programme of the German government. The German-Dutch company Boskalis Hirdes had led the consortium which had also included the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology, the University of Leipzig as well as Automatic Klein GmbH, a small- and medium-sized business specialised in automation technology. The consortium had been driven by the lack of safe and efficient methods to clear large areas of seabed from munitions, for example to prepare for the erection of an offshore wind farm or laying pipes or cables. All available methods so far required divers and a controlled detonation of the munitions in case of an active detonator. The RoBEMM consortium had addressed these shortcomings with their project objectives. The main goal had been the development of an automated system for the excavation, removal and defusing of large pieces of munitions on the seabed. The concept consisted of three main components which were all unmanned and remote-controlled. The munition was safely grabbed by an under-water vehicle which then transported the object to the core of the system, the decommissioning unit. Once the object was inside the decommissioning unit, the detonator was safely removed by remote-controlled water-jet cutting. Afterwards, the chemicals and explosives were washed out of the object. Once that task was accomplished, the decommissioning unit was heaved onto a floating disposal platform. As Ms Jacobs-Schleithoff explained, the system thus enabled a larger number of offshore decommissioning tasks and allowed the clearing of areas which could not have been treated with existing technologies so far because that was too expensive and too hazardous. Due to the high level of automation, no divers had to be put at risk during the operation. The decommissioning procedure allowed defusing ammunitions with active detonators, avoiding the necessity of a controlled explosion. This had a significant impact on the marine environment. By the end of the project, the speaker said, the system concept had been successfully elaborated. A technology demonstration of the decommissioning system had been built and presented to the stakeholders on the premises of Boskalis Hirdes in Hamburg in April 2019. The second outcome of the project was a manual on monitoring the quality of offshore technology to remove ammunitions. Said manual had been published in June 2019 by the project partner University of Leipzig. In addition to that, the RoBEMM project had been accompanied by another project, UDEMM (in German “Umweltmonitoring für die Delaboration von Munition im Meer”, in English Environmental Monitoring for Removing Munitions in the Sea). The latter had been funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education. This academic research had the goal of monitoring the condition of the marine environment prior to, during and after the application of the technologies developed in the RoBEMM project. UDEMM had received funding to the amount of 1.6 million euros from the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education. It had been completed in June 2019. The project’s consortium consisted of GEOMAR, the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, along with the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research as well as the University of Kiel. They developed a best practice guideline for environmental monitoring of munition dump areas. Moving on to the perspectives and her conclusions, Ms Jacobs-Schleithoff noted that many technologies had been developed, such as those in the RoBEMM project, or are still under development and were very promising. However, she cautioned, there currently was no market offering a demand for these technologies. In her mind, this was quite surprising as the topic could turn very pressing and go viral at any moment. Ms Jacobs-Schleithoff underlined that a technology had been developed with massive public funding, but there was still no reference project to prove its performance in real time and under real conditions. In every sector, a company that wanted to sell a new technology needed a reference project to prove the capabilities and performance of their new product and finally attract customers. Since companies usually had to decide rather quickly whether they were going to add a new technology or a new product to their portfolio or not, reference projects needed to be implemented soon after the research and development phase was completed. In the case of technologies for the detection and removal of munitions in the sea, there currently was no commercial interest. Therefore, state authorities were playing a key role in the initialisation of first reference projects. Currently, proposals requesting a total funding of 5.6 – 5.7 million euros are in the evaluation phase for the beforementioned Maritime Research Programme, headed by Ms Jacobs-Schleithoff. They were now starting to recognize the threat of ammunitions in the sea and required responsible entities in their governments as well as intensive international and national collaboration. Accordingly, she called on the parliamentarians as representatives of their states and authorities to figure out possibilities of cooperation between governments to seize this opportunity. That window of opportunity to change things was closing. Anne Jacobs-Schleithoff, presentation on the project “Ammunition salvage in the sea” : https://www.bspc.net/mafo_projekte_munition_mail/ The members of the BSPC Standing Committee discussed the issue intensively with the experts and expressed their deep concern about the situation as well as the need for action. Summarising the discussion, President Valerijus Simulik underlined the importance of the issue. The topic had to be mentioned in a document, he noted. Furthermore, the president thanked those who were implementing measures to solve the problem of sea-dumped ammunitions. He added his opinion that the military side should be involved, helping to find ways of resolving the issue without any explosions or damage to the environment. The president said he would like to see sea-dumped ammunitions included in the Vilnius Resolution in the following year, noting that the Lithuanian press featured a great deal of information about fishermen affected by it, as was the case in Denmark, Sweden and Poland. He underlined that it was a problem that all the countries around the Baltic Sea had to deal with. Their efforts had to be combined to take a huge step in this direction rather than each nation acting individually. As far as commercial structures were concerned, he agreed that these should be addressed and invited to take part in financing these programmes. Follow-up to the 28 th BSPC BSPC President Valerijus Simulik emphasized the high level of both the substantive and organizational level of the 28 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Oslo on 25-27 August 2019. He referred to the opening by the President of the Storting, the presentations about fundamental issues, very vivid and also partly controversial but open political debate, the back to back CBSS ministerial meeting of the ministries of Labour and the integration of their visions of the future of working life into the conference, and admitted that they were greatly admired and appreciated. The speaker draw attention of the delegates to the fact that the Conference Resolution – not only in English but also in Latvian and Russian – was available on the BSPC website, along with more than 30 presentations and speeches in a separate collection, supplementary information and other materials from the conference, including the Strategy and Work Programme 2019-2020, the updated Rules of Procedure as well as the financial report from the 28 th conference in Oslo. Working Group on Migration and Integration BSPC President Valerijus Simulik as well as Pyry Niemi, Valentina Pivnenko and Johannes Schraps informed the committee about the group’s current work, the 7 th meeting of the BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration in combination with the European Forum on the Integration of Migrants and Refugees in Hamburg from 23-25 October 2019 and the plans for the meeting on 12 January 2020. The next BSPC Working Group The Standing Committee agreed in general to set up the next BSPC Working Group on the issue of climate change including related aspects and to appoint Ms Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby to chair the new WG. Rapporteurs The Standing Committee discussed the current system of rapporteurs, in particular their number and content areas and decided on the following reorientation in terms of content and numbers: Ms Saara-Sofia Sirén (Finland) and Ms Beate Schlupp (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) will follow the deliberations of relevant HELCOM bodies as BSPC Observers in HELCOM. That includes following and reporting on the developments in the field of Eutrophication. President of Parliament Ms Birgit Hesse (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) will follow and report as BSPC Rapporteur on Sustainable Tourism on the developments in this field. Jörgen Pettersson (Åland Islands) and Jochen Schulte (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) will follow and report as co-rapporteurs on the developments in the field of Integrated Maritime Policy. Peter Stein (German Bundestag) will follow as BSPC Rapporteur on Sea-Dumped Munitions the developments in this field as well as the implementation of the recommendations of the 28 th BSPC and will give a report at the 29 th BSPC in Vilnius. Mr Pyry Niemi will continue following the development in the field of Labour Market and Social Welfare in his function as BSPC Vice-President. The sector Green Growth and Energy Efficiency will be covered by the new working group. Further topics of the Standing Committee meeting among others included the issue of the 28 th BSPC Resolution and its Follow-up, the29 th BSPC in Vilnius on 22-25 August 2020, the decision not to to engage in parliamentary election observer missions and deepening the cooperation with the parliaments of the Mediterranean countries. During a walk to some historical places in the Reichstagsbuilding, the Head of the German Bundestag delegation, Johannes Schraps shared historical details of these places with the Standing Committee participants, especially the proclamation of the first republic in Germany by Philipp Scheidemann and the end of the Second World War.

BSPC Vice-President Jorodd Asphjell from Norway points out the crucial importance of further measures to reach the 2030 United Nations sustainable development goals as soon as possible before 2030. The European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments brought together Speakers and Presidents of the parliaments of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe; of parliaments enjoying observer and partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and of international parliamentary assemblies. The parliaments of central Asian and Maghreb countries were also represented. On the occasion of the 70 th anniversary of the Council of Europe, the conference initially dealt with the topic of “Our Common European Home: The Next 70 Years”. The 2 nd thematic area dealt with “Implementing the UN 2030 Agenda and Its Sustainable Development Goals: Contribution by Parliaments”. The conference concluded by discussing the topic: Women in politics and in the public discourse. What role can national parliaments play in combating the increasing level of harassment and hate speech towards female politicians and parliamentarians? As the first speaker in the debate concerning the second theme, namely contributions by parliaments to the implementation of the 2030 goals of the United Nations, Jorodd Asphjell – referring to the intensive discussion of Agenda 2030 development goals during the last two Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conferences – stressed the urgent need for further far-reaching measures to which the BSPC had called and urged governments and pointed out the decisive role of parliaments in this regard. In detail, he stated: The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations is of concern to all of us. The sustainable development goals have become central topics at the national level in many countries. Reaching them means securing our future for generations to come. That is why we, as parliaments and representatives of the people, must keep focusing on these issues – both individually and in our parliamentary organisations. Regarding SDG 13 on Climate action, we must urge our governments to act; to do more and to do it quickly. The future of our children and grandchildren is at stake. And we have all seen how the young generations are losing patience. As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to listen and to contribute to achieving the SDGs by 2030. Many countries have taken far-reaching measures over a long time to meet the objectives. Parliamentary cooperation could play a decisive role here. By cooperating, we will achieve a far greater impact and we will have a far better chance of success. We as parliamentarians are responsible for the future development in our countries. The Agenda 2030 was a main topic for the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference both in 2018 and this year. A special focus has been placed on removing plastic waste and restoring the oceans. In August, the Norwegian parliament hosted the annual BSPC meeting in Oslo. The City of Oslo has made a considerable effort to become more environmentally friendly over the past years. It has conserved its natural areas, cleaned up the Oslo Fjord and restored the city’s waterways. This was one of the reasons why Oslo proudly won the European Green Capital Award for 2019. The environmental aspects of the Baltic Sea are a hot topic in the BSPC. Industrial waste and fertilizer from farming have further increased pollution in the sea. In our resolutions, we urge our governments to take action and achieve the objectives of the Agenda 2030 as soon as possible. Appropriate strategies and measures must be pursued. On the executive side, the Council of the Baltic Sea States is making progress in this direction. We are also promoting, supporting and involving initiatives among young people to achieve the SDGs. An example are the activities implemented by the international network under the name Regeneration 2030. The BSPC has also taken new steps in interparliamentary cooperation when discussing the health of our seas with our colleagues from the Black Sea region. Together we can move forward through mutual cooperation and the exchange of best practice. We believe that parliamentary cooperation plays a key role in achieving the SDGs. Therefore, let’s continue to work together on this in the future. Only then will the next generation pay tribute to what we have done. Let’s get to work, Let’s get involved, Let us develop ideas and visions to help both the people who elected us and future generations to live in a peaceful and sustainable world. Meetings in the margins of the conference The BSPC Vice-President also met the President of the Council of Europe, Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Secretaries Generals of several national parliaments and of interparliamentary organisations.

Following the 28 th annual Conference in Oslo, the BSPC has published a compilation of the speeches and presentations currently available. The collection will be continuously completed. The collection can be downloaded here and on the 28 th conference webpage.

Concluding the conference, the parliamentarians unanimously passed a resolution covering cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, the future of working life, safeguarding the oceans – achieving the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals – as well as migration and integration. In their resolution, they called, among other points, to strengthen trust among all Member States of the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS) through further concrete efforts and measures; to intensify the early involvement of the next generation and respect the next generation’s concerns more intensively in policy and decision-making processes via concrete measures of the governments to reinforce the foundations of trust and security in the Baltic Sea region as an element of foreign policy; to implement and exchange ideas on the ministerial level as early as possible; to include the social partners’ current considerations and strategic approaches in meeting the considerable challenges regarding the future of working life and to use the early exchange of such to deal with these challenges in the individual countries of the Baltic Sea region; to support the further development of a legally-binding, globally-reaching mechanism for managing plastic waste and to explore the possibility of a Baltic Sea-wide agreement on the future management of migration. After the successful passing of the resolution, the baton of the Presidency went to Lithuania as the host of the next and 29 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. The conference unanimously appointed Valerijus Simulik , Member of Lithuanian Parliament as the new BSPC President. Jorodd Asphjell, Member of the NorwegianParliamentand Pyry Niemi , Member of the Swedish Parliament were appointed Vice Presidents of the BSPC. The upcoming BSPC President Valerijus Simulik invited the delegates to Vilnius (August 22 until 25) and remarked that after 15 years, the BSPC would come back to Lithuania. “During our Presidency, we want to place a special emphasis on what is particularly close to our hearts: a boost to innovation through science and technology and their interaction to achieve better added value in economic development based on science” he pointed out in his address as incoming President of the BSPC 2019-2020. The success of the 28 th BSPC Conference was not only shown in the unanimous adoption of a resolution with far-reaching common objectives but also in the creation of a platform for the presentation of sometimes very different positions and proving that a compromise could be reached in a debate that was sometimes heated at the beginning, but always conducted in a parliamentary fashion. The many discussions that took place in the Storting plenary hall, within the framework of the cultural programme and especially during the evening to which the President of the Storting had invited the participants, helped to reduce existing tensions on some national levels, to build new confidence, to deepen cooperation and to decide on common, future-oriented measures. The main topic on the last day of the conference was migration and integration, with the session chaired by Pyry Niemi, MP, Sweden and Carola Veit, MP, President of the State Parliament of Hamburg. A significant part of the session was given to the speech by two representatives of the younger generation and the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum – Ms Rama Akid who introduced herself as a refugee from Syria living in Germany and Ms Sara Zdanovska from Latvia. They reported on discussions during the Migration and Integration Working Group in Schwerin in April 2019 and presented the young people’s view on that issue. The youths had identified the most important problems of immigrants: differences of culture and religion, educational differences, the weather – an underestimated but important factor playing a role in the mental health of immigrants -, the language and different procedures in applying for a job. Among the wishes and recommendations to the decision-makers were: countries being educated about newcomers and vice versa, desegregation, political participation, involvement of youth councils and education. Hans Wallmark , MP, Chairman of the BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration, presented the Second Interim Report of the Working Group, which can be downloaded from the BSPC website. Mr Wallmark stated that “the challenge is thatevery member country has its own set of historical experiences, traditions and political culture. It is no secret that the member states of the BSPC have different approaches to migration. What may work well in one country may not work at all in another. Sometimes, we might have to modify a policy to make it successful in our own environment. The most important aspect is that we are open-minded and try to learn from each other’s successes and mistakes. That is what Baltic cooperation should be all about.” Mr Tuomas Martikainen, Director of the Migration Institute of Finland, presented some considerations and conclusions about the policy assessment and recommendations on the Baltic Sea governments’ Immigration and Integration Policy. He proposed that the survey gathered by other organizations(e.g. OECD, Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX), the Nordic Welfare Centre and the International Organization for Migration (IOM)) could be combined in the future with the data collected by the BSPC members. This would assist the public policies’ role in facilitating the desirable working conditions for NGOs and informal networks, thus strengthening immigrant integration. The next speakers, Ms Annika Annerby Jansson , President Scania Regional Council, and Ms Katarina Carlzen , shared the Skåne Multilevel Best Practice on Integration. In the case of Skåne, the multi-level way of working was the key to success. Ms Jansson informed the audience that a joint strategy had been designed by the Region Skåne, the County Administrative Board and the Skåne Association of Local Authorities. The responsibilities were shared by national, regional and local authorities together with civil society and academia. She stressed that a common strategy had to be translated into concrete practice with different and complementary roles. That methodof work – a multi-level platform, i.e., Partnership Skåne – had been partially transferred to large parts of Sweden, involving all of Sweden’s counties with more than 150 municipalities, five universities and a large number of NGOs. In the next part of the session, two BSPC reports were presented, the Report by Ms Sara Kemetter , MP on Sustainable Tourism, and by Mr Jörgen Pettersson, Vice-President of the BSPC, as well as Dr Thomas Etzold on the Implementation of the 27 th BSPC Resolution. Session Four was concluded by the general debate. There were no restrictions placed on the debate’s content, giving each parliamentarian and every participant the opportunity to contribute what is particularly important to him/her, regardless of the conference topic. BSPC President Jorodd Asphjell, closed the 28 th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Oslo with “a thousand thanks”- “tusen takk” to all participants.