Report to the 19th BSPC by Christina Gestrin

29 August 2010Report by Christina Gestrin,Chairman of the BSPC,at the 19th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference,Mariehamn, 29-31 August 2010Honourable Guests,Dear Colleagues,It gives me great pleasure to see so many people attending this year’s conference. It is a testimony to a broad engagement, and it strengthens our political standpoints. Let us use this strength wisely and for the benefit of our region.Firstly, on behalf of the BSPC, I would like to direct many and warm thanks to our host, Ålands Lagting (the Åland Parliament) and especially to the speaker Roger Nordlund. Many thanks also to Harry Jansson and the group of parliamentarians who have enthusiastically engaged in the project to arrange the 19th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference here in the charming town of Mariehamn.Here, in this island realm, the beauty and other resources of the Baltic Sea are so strikingly apparent. But here we are also greatly affected by the strains to which the Baltic Sea is exposed. For many people, environmental problems are something they only read about in newspapers, but here they are a tangible reality in everyday life.Chairman,Undoubtedly, a great deal is being done to help the Baltic Sea recover and to promote prosperity and welfare in the Baltic Sea region. A number of players, both public and private, have taken and implemented various types of initiative and action, which is promising. But naturally we cannot rest on our laurels and be satisfied with the state of things. The environmental problems in the region, not least in terms of the health of the Baltic Sea, are still major and ongoing.The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and the time it is taking to bring it under control, is a grim threat that unfortunately is not an unrealistic scenario for the Baltic Sea. It is estimated that oil transports by sea will increase by over 70% by 2015. The disaster shows so very clearly the necessity of having a high level of regional preparedness for emergencies, as well as sufficient and available equipment for dealing with major oil spills at sea.In HELCOM’s recently published holistic evaluation of the health status of the ecosystems in the Baltic Sea, it is stated directly, on the first page, that the evaluation sends an unequivocal message that not a single one of the open basins of the Baltic Sea is in an acceptable state in terms of the environment. Most of the Baltic Sea is negatively impacted by eutrophication, hazardous substances, and shrinking biological diversity. In order to remedy this situation, immediate measures are needed in agriculture, industry and the transport sector, but HELCOM also makes the point that we as individuals must also take action. Ultimately it is our lifestyle that is the basic cause of pressure on the ecosystems.It is not just the environment that is subjected to wear and exploitation. Nor can we blind ourselves to the fact that there are great inequalities and imbalances in the Baltic Sea region, resulting in social and economic anomalies.As parliamentarians and legislators we have a task and a mandate from our voters to carry out initiatives and measures to protect the Baltic Sea environment and to promote the development of prosperity in the region. We must listen to the wishes and fears from grass roots level, shape opinion and increase awareness, drive political issues in our home parliaments, exert political pressure on our governments to turn words into action, act as watchdogs to ensure that the governments keep their promises, and – not least – influence legislation.One of this year’s themes is the issue of peace and safety in the Baltic Sea region. This is natural now that we find ourselves on the demilitarised Åland Islands, which is an example of, and a symbol for, peaceful conflict management. At the same time, it is a reminder that the ultimate aim of all international cooperation, including our work in BSPC, is to promote peace and safety.Chairman,In the resolution from our 18th conference, held in Nyborg last year, we directed a series of recommendations to the governments in the Baltic Sea region. We emphasised that the financial crisis must not be used as an excuse for cutting back the measures that need to be taken to meet the region’s challenges. The governments must, for example, take effective and concrete measures to fulfil their undertakings to achieve the objectives in the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. The governments must also help to build up capacity to promote development, growth and management of financially feasible and practically implementable projects that will benefit the region. Furthermore, we called for a number of tangible measures, for example in the areas of maritime safety, energy cooperation, energy efficiency, youth unemployment and organised crime.Have we got a response? Obviously, these types of recommendations cannot be turned into reality overnight or even in a year. But it is equally obvious that our voice has been heard, not least when we collaborate with other players in the region and use our specific parliamentary support to influence opinion and promote practical development of projects. Target-oriented, consistent and long-term action keeps the issues on the agenda, and gradually develops solutions to them. As we all know, unity, persistence and patience are necessary qualities in politics.Chairman,Our contacts with other organisations have been expanded and strengthened. Let me give a brief review.Our cooperation with CBSS is pragmatic and constructive. This June, we had the privilege of being invited to the 8th Baltic Sea States Summit, where we emphasised that governments must take responsibility for strengthening coordination between various initiatives in the region, and provide them with financial and other resources for their implementation. At our January meeting this year, we were also given a progress report and an opportunity to exchange ideas with the chairman of CBSS CSO about the work in CBSS. We have tried to largely coordinate our overall priorities with CBSS, so we each now have two working groups that are examining similar issues but from different angles. The groups maintain regular contact and participate in each other’s meetings. We are supporting the CBSS project proposal to the EU to improve the body of knowledge about trafficking (DEFLECT). We have also established contact with the Nordic Dimension Partnership in Public Health and Social Well-being (NDPHS), with a view to practical cooperation.From the very start, we expressed our strong support for the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. As early as 2007, HELCOM’s member states undertook to prepare national action plans for practical implementation of the overall plan. It was therefore with some disappointment that we noted that a number of countries were unable to present national action plans at the HELCOM Ministerial Meeting in May. However, we are now looking forward to these countries also presenting their plans by spring 2011.The EU Baltic Sea Strategy, which was formally launched in October 2009, can be an effective addition to the toolkit for tackling the region’s challenges. We maintain that this must be synchronized with other initiatives and measures, not least the Northern Dimension, in order to ensure full and equal participation by all countries in the Baltic Sea region. At our January meeting, we received important progress reports from the EU Commission about, for example, the Baltic Sea Strategy, the Northern Dimension and the integrated maritime policy.The Baltic Sea Action Summit in Helsinki in February was an innovative Baltic Sea initiative with the task of gathering practical and binding commitments from a series of private and public stakeholders. BSPC’s commitment is to act politically to develop vessel traffic services and reporting systems in order to improve navigation safety in the Baltic Sea.BSPC is involved as an associate partner in the Baltic Sea Labour Network (BSLN), which is a Flagship Project in the EU’s Baltic Sea Programme 2007-2013. The project is aimed at strengthening dialogue and cooperation between the social partners in the Baltic Sea region.BSPC was also invited to the Nordic Forum for Security Policy in St Petersburg in the spring, where we presented our position and policy recommendations about organised crime and civil security.Based on an initiative from parliamentarians in the Baltic Sea region, the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) and the Nordic Environmental Financing Corporation (NEFCO) have launched a development fund to support project development relating to implementation of the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan. We fully support the fund and urge governments in the region to allocate funds to it.Chairman,We are continuing to improve the internal organisation within BSPC. The new format for the meetings of the Standing Committee and the Enlarged Standing Committee is working well. In practice, this means that the Enlarged Standing Committee – particularly at its January meeting – is working as a strategic decision-making body, containing representatives from all the BSPC member parliaments and parliamentary organisations.The joint financing mechanism for the secretariat’s running costs has been in operation since 2007, and a successful system has been developed in 2009-2010. All member parliaments have now paid – or indicated that they will pay – the contribution for 2010 and “99%” of the outstanding payments for previous years have now been paid.Our experiences of using political working groups are expanding and maturing. The working groups have undoubtedly added value to the work of the BSPC, and have provided both independent and authoritative reports that gave significant input to our resolutions. I therefore assume that we will be setting up one or two new working groups when the current groups have submitted their final reports at the 20th Conference in Finland in 2011.BSPC’s new homepage has been fully operative since spring 2010. It is a successful and user-friendly platform for spreading information and documentation.BSPC has gradually developed into a stable structure, with more permanent bodies and recurring working groups, and with established external cooperation and information channels. An idea comes to mind: should we confirm this development by changing our name to, for example, the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Council instead of Conference? It would be a more accurate title, and would also give a sort of parity with our sister organisation on the governmental side, CBSS.Chairman,Many of the challenges in the Baltic Sea region are complex and have different consequences and repercussions for different countries or players. But their complexity and the fact that they require many different approaches is exactly why a forum like BSPC is so important. We can provide an arena where differences can be raised and where an open political debate about them can be held. This is a necessary prerequisite for finding successful solutions and pragmatic compromises, even on sensitive issues. In this way, BSPC can contribute to a transparent, democratic and constructive political process, and to practical solutions to the challenges facing the Baltic Sea region.Thank you.