Annual Report of the BSPC President 2018-2019

26 August 2019Jorodd AsphjellPresident of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC)28th Baltic Sea Parliamentary ConferenceAnnual Report of the BSPC PresidentDear colleagues, excellences, ladies and gentlemen, honourable guests of the28th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference 25-27 August 2019 in Oslo,It is the honourable duty of the BSPC President to provide the delegates of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference with a report on the activities throughout the past year. The following issues – from my point of view – clearly stand out in my consideration:In the past year, the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference has visibly and in every respect fulfilled its programmatic and strategic objectives and achieved significant progress: On the basis of our Strategy and Work Programme 2018-2019 and our resolution,we have communicated our principles and core messages at a large number of Baltic Sea-relevant events and beyond,we have intensified the cooperation with our partners, andour programmatic concerns and contents are perceived much more strongly.We are becoming increasingly successful in influencing government action.Wherever possible, in accordance with the fundamental concerns of our institution: We have emphasised and strengthened the parliamentary dimension of cooperation and stressed the principles of our cooperation time and again.The conference in Mariehamn last year passed the Strategy and Work Programme 2018-2019, which is – combined with our annual resolution – our strategic basis in which we identified as core issues of our work for 2018 to 2019 which are of great importance for the future of the development in our region and the wellbeing of our people:Migration and integration,finding solutions based on mutual information and best practicesPeaceful and close neighbourliness as well as intense cooperation based on democratic values, the rule of law, human rights and equal opportunities for allThe Future of Working Life – Digitalization, Integration and Labour Mobility in the Baltic Sea RegionThe Baltic Sea Region as a Role Model to reach the United Nations Development Goals before the year 2030We have geared our activities to these topics and targets in the BSPC Standing Committee, the BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration, the BSPC rapporteurs and the BSPC President:Standing CommitteeThe first Standing Committee under the Norwegian Presidency took place in Trondheim.During this session, we dealt intensively with the implementation of the 26th BSPC Resolution and evaluated it together with the author of the political analysis. From these discussions we also drew conclusions on the requirements for governments in relation to the implementation of the 27th resolution.As part of the meeting, the BSPC Standing Committee was given deep insight into the latest research results from Trondheim in the areas of a Clean Ocean, Renewable Ocean Energy and Smart Maritime as well as the development of environmentally friendly ships.The first presentation, on the electrification of the coastline, was held by the Director Strategy and Business Development at Siemens, Trondheim, Odd Moen. In his presentation, he first discussed the current global megatrends: globalization, urbanization, demographic change, climate change as well as digitalization. He presented a large number of examples of vessels with new electrical technology, which led to massive reductions in consumption and emissions. He also addressed the topic of electric aviation. The question was now how to bring all the electrical ambitions together, on roads, on sea and in the air as well as on the railway.He also pointed out that digitalization would raise the efficiency of electric operations. He expected that by 2030, it should be possible to travel along the Norwegian seaside without any negative emissions because the technology was already available for the various types of vehicles. He expressed the belief that the future would be electric and that the marine market would double in the next few years.Odd Moen Presentation – Electrification of the coastlineProfessor Sverre Steen, Head of Department of Marine Technology of NTNU – the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, addressed the topic of maritime transport and the environment as well as the associated and important issue of autonomous ships. The university pursued four strategic research areas: energy, health, ocean and sustainability. He stated that shipping took up some 90 per cent of the transportation tasks in terms of kilometres, carrying e.g. oil and coal. By the same token, shipping also accounted for 2.6 % of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2012. Referring to greenhouse gas emissions, the professor considered it the most difficult problem. For short-range vessels, batteries could be used, but that was not available for deep-sea ships. While the emissions of 2012 might be considered a small number, they were expected to grow significantly in the coming years unless radical measures were put in place. International shipping was hard to regulate, he mentioned. Regulation through the IMO was a very slow process, taking 20 years on average. The professor noted that politicians could implement some changes on a much faster track, citing local transportation regulated by national rules. Modern hydrofoil technology could double the range for high-speed boats on batteries. The technology saved 20 – 30 % of energy consumption. He pointed out that there was great interest in autonomous shipping in the maritime industry and dealt in detail with the different developments for large ships to be fully autonomous and for short-range shipping.Sverre Steen Presentation – Maritime transport and the environment. Autonomous shipsMimmi Throne-Holst, Research Manager, gave an insight into the research results from the SINTEF Center for Clean Ocean Research. Challenges related to marine littering and pollution must be solved to realise growth in a sustainable blue economy. She covered the topics of Climate Change and Acidification, Over-Fishing and Destruction of Habitats, Marine Littering and Pollution as well as Oil Spill Contingency and Response. She pointed out that poor management of waste was the cause of 80-90 % of all marine pollution. To mitigate plastic pollution, she stressed the urgent need for action in the sectors: development/improvement of infrastructure and waste management; phasing out unnecessary single use plastic; extending the liability for producers; international coordination as well as new knowledge and technology. She concluded that climate change was the greatest threat to ocean health.Mimmi Throne-Holst Presentation – SINTEF Center for Clean Ocean ResearchMr Per Magne Einang, Senior Research Scientist, SINTEF OCEAN was representing an institute funded by SINTEF. The institute’s main goal was to improve energy efficiency, reduce harmful emissions and strengthen Norway’s competitiveness. Their research concerned a reduction of natural gas in shipping, for instance with hybrid or electrical power. He noted that deep-sea shipping made up the largest part of maritime shipping, and equipping it with environmentally friendly engines was not easy. Finding good solutions for large ships in international travel would be the primary challenge for the centre. Electricity currently seemed to be the best solution. The institute’s primary approach was to develop tools to reduce emissions, increase energy efficiency and implement similar measures to be used in ocean-going vessels.In their research, the institute was looking at increasing the energy efficiency of fuels. His institute was internationally active, including two research associates from Chalmers University in Goteborg, Sweden, and one from Copenhagen, one from the UK and one from Hamburg, Germany. The centre was also closely associated with the commercial industrial cluster of Norway.Per Magne Einang Presentation – SFI Smart MaritimeThe BSPC Standing Committee intensively discussed the presented developments, research results and challenges for the future with the experts.It has been a good tradition for the BSPC to hold its winter meeting in Brussels to meet with important stakeholders from the European level and to inform our work accordingly.Even though it was again a very dense presentation programme with a myriad of facts confronting us and perhaps reaching the limit of what can be absorbed in one afternoon: In and with this meeting, we worked through a large part of the requirements that we had set ourselves in our strategy and work programme.The Standing Committee had a lively and intensive exchange of opinions with the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Boguslaw Liberadzki. On behalf of the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, Vice-President Liberadzki stressed that the meeting of the Standing Committee had a very high importance for the European Parliament. He reminded his audience of the fact that 40 years earlier, the Baltic Sea region had been filled with all kinds of divisions, including NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Economically, the OEEC and the COMECON had faced each other. Today’s processes were characterized by coming together, working together, bringing decision-makers closer together, bringing people and governments closer together, and step by step creating more stability and more cooperation. For the European Parliament in the capital of democracy, he said, it was important to meet regularly, to work together, to combine all different organisations related to Baltic Sea cooperation – people, parliaments, governments, non-governmental organizations and other institutions. The Baltic Sea was a joint value, a joint issue and sometimes a joint problem to be solved together. The meeting proved a good opportunity to get closer and deepen mutual relationsProgress report on the new European Union Cohesion PolicyMr 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 in the EU Cohesion Policy and its impact on cross-border cooperation beyond the EU.The speaker noted that he would touch on five key elements in his presentation: the evolution of the territorial cooperation – called Interreg -; the way the Directorate works with other countries; the evolution of macro-regional strategies, on which they had just presented a report for the Commission; some more specific aspects connected to the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region; concluding with some views on the way forward.Considering a more global perspective of the cohesion policy, Mr Halkin noted that in May 2017, the Commission had proposed a set of new regulations to frame a new cohesion policy. There were some key elements worth reviewing, first of all that Europe was a continent of tremendous diversity. The various regions differed in terms of economic and social situations. Accordingly, the cohesion policy, affecting all regions of the European Union, had to be differentiated in order to provide responses which were tailor-made and supplied the European strategies combined with preconditions to allow for a successful investment which would enable an increase of the EU’s and national investment. The end goal of that policy was to make these regions attractive places for their residents, for their workers, businesses as well as visitors – for everyone.Mr Halkin emphasised this was about creating a Europe that truly empowered everyone, all the citizens, from the bottom to the national level and the regional level.Territorial cooperation past 2020For the new programming period, the Commission had proposed an enabling and flexible framework that would allow boosting interventions and tailoring this to the specific context. There were two major evolutions in this proposal: One was a radical simplification, and the other was strengthening the connections between the cohesion policy and the European semester. Moreover, they had proposed a new dedicated policy objective, related to integrated territorial development: Policy Objective Five “Europe Closer to the Citizen”. This was a visible commitment by the Commission for integrated territorial development that underlined a distinctive territorial dimension of the cohesion policy. This was also called Interregio 5 and open to all kinds of territories, such as notably rural areas but also cities, mountains as well as sparsely populated areas and islands.Regarding changes in territorial cooperation, also described as ETC or Interreg, the speaker noted that territorial cooperation had always been branded as the most European part of the cohesion policy. This was because it was promoting stronger cooperation, building trust and confidence between European citizens, which was part of the European project but also exceeded the European Union as it was not only creating trust between the regions of the European Union but also with neighbouring regions.The speaker went on to summarise the key elements driving the Commission in drafting this regulation, listing seven important points. First of all, they revisited the architecture of the Interreg programmes so as to reduce the overlap between different Interreg programmes as well as minimize fragmentation. The second point was their goal to reinforce the strategic dimension of the new programmes to be developed, by linking them more strongly to existing strategic frameworks and policy initiatives, such as the macro-regional strategies. The third point was to radically simplify the implementation of Interreg programmes. Mr Halkin noted that these were already smaller than the so-called mainstream programmes, despite having similar complexities. As such, the transaction costs were higher by comparison. Therefore, they wanted to ensure that more resources could be dedicated to the substance, that better access would be available to smaller projects by reducing the administrative burden for these programmes. The fourth point was that they wanted to better recognise maritime cooperation, by combining the connections seen at the trinational level with the excellent activities carried out today by the maritime cross-border cooperation programmes. Here, they believed that more synergies could be proposed to continue these interventions such as to deliver more impact and more added value. Equally, the Commission also sought to further promote innovation and to root it better in the cohesion policy, by proposing an initiative for interregional initiative investment. This was a new component, he pointed out, for a legislative proposal which existed to boost investment in innovation through the regional policy, while also strengthening their commitment to the urban agenda, notably through the new Policy Objective Five. Finally, another goal was to strengthen the rule of territorial cooperation to boost governance and administrative capacities.Cooperation with non-EU countriesRegarding the way his side was working with third countries, there was also a major innovation: For the first time, the ETC regulation was covering both the programmes implemented within the European Union and the CBC programmes implemented in such third countries. In other words, the same regulation covered both cooperation between EU-internal regions and with the countries in the neighbourhood which fell under the ENI CBC programmes. Furthermore, a new component had been adopted, dedicated specifically to the outermost regions, which the speaker conceded might be far from the BSPC’s concern.Mr Halkin underlined that the Commission wanted to continue working with some countries that had been associated with the cohesion policy, referring particularly to Norway. Certainly, they would keep welcoming Norwegian participation in Interreg and equally would be delighted to hear about Norwegian intentions regarding their contributions to Interreg programmes.Macro-regional strategiesMoving on to the third point, macro-regional strategies, the speaker related the conclusions from their last report, which had been published on 29 January 2018, on the implementation of the four macro-regional strategies. First of all, they were pleased that this had become an integral part of the EU policy framework, going well beyond the regional policies, as evidenced by the attendance of the key event for the strategy. This attendance had included commissioners and vice-presidents. Many regions had been represented by the senior management level. He noted that Commission services were contributing more and more to the implementation of the strategies.He appreciated that the strategies were offering not only a multi-sectoral but also multi-country governance and also involved third countries on a level playing field. This, Mr Halkin said, was part of the added value of macro-regional strategies.Considering the European Union policy for the Baltic Sea region, EUSBSR, he pointed out that this had been the first strategy to be adopted. It was also the largest and had produced very concrete results which had also been presented in the same report, accompanied by a staff working document including a strategic component. On that aspect, he offered his gratitude to everyone contributing to the report. To the BSPC, he said that this was also their report as the substance very much reflected the BSPC’s work.For the Baltic Sea strategy, two opportunities were coming up, as Mr Halkin said. The first was to ensure that the strategies were used as a strategic framework to guide the programming of all EU funds in the regions. This was very important. The new regulation provided for such an alignment to be promoted, notably allowing cooperation to be supported by all regional and mainstream programmes – outside of the member states, outside of the regions, outside of the European Union. He underlined that this was another way to promote cooperation. Nonetheless, the Commission would like this opportunity of aligning the funds with the strategy available to all existing EU funds, but in particular for the one in shared management where the BSPC was in the driving seat for the programming.The second opportunity was the revision of the Action Plan of the Baltic Sea Region. Tremendous progress had been made on all priority areas. Now, there was an opportunity to bolster the programming as well as the action plan to better fit the expectations of the citizens, by defining more clearly which resources would be committed and also what the intended tangible results would be by 2027. At the end, he also saw a call to do more for the strategies, both from the side of the Commission and also on the part of the member states. Strategies were integral processes. As such, it was important to maintain the political commitment from all member states participating in this strategy. This was something very important, he stressed, pointing out that the strategies were not technocratic but political processes. Without political processes, the metaphorical bicycle would stop.The Commission was confident that they could rely on the support from all member states to better align the funds and work hard with the governance. Here, major progress had been seen to better associate the grassroots level of the strategies. Any additional step in order to lend more participation to the citizen, to the strategy was welcome. Mr Halkin noted that the Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region was well-known and supported by the citizens. In some member states, even 60 per cent of the citizenry was aware of the presence of the Strategy, which he pointed out was quite an achievement. The goal should be to build on that support to strengthen the governance.The final point the speaker mentioned was to build a better monetary framework, allowing them to produce convincing and tangible results.He concluded his presentation by reiterating that he would welcome any suggestions for the way forward and thanked the Standing Committee for listening to him.Progress Report from the CBSSAmbassador Juris Bone, Chairman of the Committee of Senior Officials of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, Ambassador-at-Large of Latvia, informed the Standing Committee about the course of implementation of the program of the Lithuanian presidency at the CBSS. He noted that the Latvian CBSS presidency had been very pragmatic with a calendar full of events and activities. He mentioned that at the same time in Riga, two important events were taking place, one a conference on human trafficking attended not only by CBSS member states but also by countries such as the United Kingdom or the United States. The second important event was the high-level meeting on the Baltic Sea Science Days in Riga, a CBSS tradition that had started in Saint Petersburg, continued in Finland and now in Latvia.He reminded the meeting of the three priorities they had established for their presidency. The first had been integrity in societal security. Human trafficking was one aspect, but Mr Bone considered as most important establishing a culture of a secure society by working together. This priority accordingly also included cooperation on tackling organised crime. Latvia had been the presiding country until the end of the preceding year, and the presidency had since been taken over by two countries, Poland and Germany. Another priority had been responsibility, related to the sustainable development goals set by the Baltic Sea 2030 Action Plan. It had also been very successful. One challenge was related to this priority, namely the future view of the CBSS working group on sustainable development. The mandate of this group had been very wide, although it was looking at what exactly it should focus on in the future. Mr Bone noted that its most recent meeting had only been a few days earlier. The third priority was dialogue, specifically focussing on the protection of cultural heritage. Dialogue was necessary among experts and stakeholders, to talk about heritage preservation systems, including such for recent cultural heritage, as well as contemporary measures and technologies to find models that would best serve to protect cultural heritage for the future. In that regard, he was glad to mention an important event coming up in May: The ambassador said that it was a happy coincidence that the Latvian National Library received project money from the CBSS’s project support facility, allowing it to organize an important regional conference on the protection and digitalization of cultural heritage. The Latvian organisation responsible for the protection of heritage, the National Heritage Board, had worked hard on this regional cultural heritage group. They were also knocking on the doors of those countries which were not yet members of this working group. Recently, he added, the Latvian Minister of Culture had sent letters to Iceland, Russia, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, inviting them to join the group.The Latvian Presidency had had one very specific aspect in its work, noting that it was always a difficult presidency when reform processes were ongoing, as was the case here. At a meeting of foreign ministers in Stockholm in June 2017, the CBSS had been tasked to present a roadmap to achieve tangible results of reforms. The Committee of Senior Officials was currently working on that process, with some first results already achieved. Ambassador Bone said it was clear that the CBSS could not operate in the same way as it had done since 1992 because the environment had very much changed. All the strategic interests were different as was the political context.One point agreed upon was, the speaker stated, that in the future, the presidencies would have more flexibility to decide on political meetings at the end of each term. The reason for that was that until 2013/2014, it had been a precondition to have a Prime Ministers Meeting in the first year, a Foreign Ministers Meeting in the second. Yet considering the last meetings of foreign ministers, in Reykjavik and Stockholm, the interest had proved to be diminishing. This issue had to be tackled. One solution was to provide the previously mentioned flexibility in the presidency, allowing it to fight for political meetings to be possible.Another point discussed was how to balance the political dialogue and practical cooperation as the two main pillars of the CBSS. There were diverging views, the discussion was still ongoing. It was quite clear, the ambassador said, that practical cooperation would most likely have a greater role, but the question was how to define this. Some countries understood this as cooperation between line ministries, while others saw this as cooperation between NGOs and people-to-people contacts. He affirmed that the CBSS would maintain its role as an organisation of political dialogue.Finally, Ambassador Bone announced that the Latvian Presidency of the CBSS had the intention to organise, as a concluding event of its term, a meeting of foreign ministers in Riga. It had been discussed at the working level of senior officials. While there was always the challenge of finding a common date, their intentions were firm to continue this tradition.Conservation and sustainable use of the oceansDirector Bernhard Friess of the Directorate-General Mare, responsible for Maritime Policy and Blue Economy, informed the Standing Committee on that particular subject area.He mentioned that at the same time, the meeting of the national coordinators of the European Union Baltic Sea Strategy was taking place in Brussels.Mr Friess began his presentation by underlining a dire environmental situation depicted by the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change). The organisation had prepared a report on the seas and oceans mandated by the European Commission which would be released in September 2019. Unfortunately, the report confirmed the common knowledge that the sea level rise was happening very fast. The IPCC estimated that already at certain levels, an increase of 60 cm around the world would be unavoidable. That trend could not be stopped because the emissions would not be reduced quickly enough. Therefore, an even greater rise of sea levels, one meter or more, should be expected. The IPCC predicted that already in the current century – of which a quarter would have passed in only 5 years -, climate change would happen very quickly. It would affect the cities around the Baltic Sea, and all the coral reefs would be lost due to temperature rise. The speaker warned that those facts should be better known and taken into consideration when discussing the macroeconomic process.Concerning the maritime economy, the speaker informed his audience that if the global ocean economy were compared to the national economies, then it would be the 7th largest national economy globally. In Europe, the maritime economy was of significant size, employing up to 5 million people across Europe. It was more extensive than many industrial sectors and with as high a profile as the defence sector or aviation sector.In July 2017, the Commission had published the first Report on the Maritime Economy – The 2018 annual economic report on the EU blue economy –, showing some trends, based on ten years of statistical data. Many of the traditional maritime sectors such as shipping, ports, shipbuilding had not been performing quite so well compared to the general economy. Good economic performance had been achieved in the so-called maritime blue economy – fishing, agriculture, bio-economy products. Those sectors were outperforming the broad general economy, especially regarding innovative industries, such as blue renewable technology and wind energy. Many jobs had been created there, and growth was high.The Baltic Sea Region a model region of cooperationMr Friess confirmed that the BSR was in many ways a model for others, not least because the collaboration had started many years ago. During the Swedish presidency of the EU, the idea of launching the Baltic Sea Strategy had been created. Since then, there had been attempts to establish similar cooperation in other regions of Europe. The speaker admitted, however, that there was still more space for such efforts in the BSR. In 2017, the Commission had prepared a study based on consultations with many stakeholders to identify four areas in which collaboration in maritime issues would be particularly beneficial. The document Towards an Implementation Strategy for the Sustainable Blue Growth Agenda for the Baltic Sea Region focused on shipping, the blue bio-economy, coastal and maritime tourism and environmental technologies, and it had shown that there was a massive set of opportunities for joint investment into some of those sectors.Mr Friess further referred to ocean energy sources. He stated that ocean energy not only meant offshore wind but also more innovative technologies set up to generate electricity from ocean waves or tide currents. The speaker reported that in both areas, companies from the Scandinavian region and the Baltic Sea area were very advanced, and some were quite successful. The maritime department of the European Commission which he represented was helping to introduce those technologies into the market and make the sector one of the essential renewable industries in the European energy mix. He mentioned that a lot of EU support had been given to promote research and to develop technologies. Still more had to be done to raise captive investment because, in spite of suitable conditions for captive investment, the revenue model was the main obstacle for many investors. A good practice example was the offshore wind industry which had been propelled to a unique level globally. As much as 90 % of all wind energy generators were installed in Europe. This was possible because governments had adopted revenue support policies acceptable for investors. The speaker called for a clearer political message to bring new innovative, environmentally friendly marine energies into the market. The governments needed to provide the framework in terms of the regulatory environment that would allow developers to have some amount of certainty about the revenue treatment in the next few years. He mentioned the offshore industry as the model that could be used for other sectors of innovative maritime investments.The maritime economy in the framework of the EUSBSRConcerning the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, Mr Friess expressed his opinion that more could be done under that strategy in terms of cooperation in maritime issues. The most innovative of the companies and their activities were hampered due to poor availability of capital for investment in early-stage companies. In the Commission, work was undertaken to set up an early-stage maritime blue economy investment fund for innovative companies across the Baltic, active in biotechnology as well as underwater technologies and environmental technologies, in cooperation with the Luxemburg-based European Investment Bank. The speaker also mentioned the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund which was supporting an exciting project called Baltic SCOPE. This project was bringing together the Maritime Spatial Planning authorities and Regional Sea Organisations in the Baltic Sea Area with the goal of developing the planning solutions to transboundary issues and improving the Maritime Spatial Planning processes. Another project supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was the project aimed at reducing plastic waste and other hazardous substances. The speaker drew attention to the fact that plastic waste and pollution influenced fish stocks and undercounted the economic basis for the maritime sector. Therefore, protecting the marine environment was not only an investment worth itself but should be perceived as a factor which could yield economic benefit. He gave an example of the state of the fishery in the northern part of Europe, e.g. the Atlantic Sea, the North Sea and part of the Baltic Sea. In a period of 10 years, the fishery had moved gradually from overfishing to sustainable fishing. Currently, nearly all the fish stock in the Atlantic was caught by sustainable methods, and the economic performance of the fishing industries in that area had improved. Mr Friess concluded that there was a parallel between more sustainability and more profit. Sustainability was an investment. That applied not only to fisheries but to all sectors.The spring meeting of the Standing Committee in Hamburg was increasingly focused on the preparations for the annual conference. In addition to the priorities set out in the draft resolution, the main focus was on fundamental issues of Baltic Sea cooperation and the framework for peacekeeping measures.At the start, the meeting commemorated the former BSPC President Sylvia Bretschneider as well as the Swedish Ambassador and former Chairman of the CBSS Senior Officials Hans Olsson.Carola Veit, President of the State Parliament of Hamburg, Standing Committee member and Vice-Chair of the BSPC WG Migration and Integration stated that the BSPC deplored the tragic loss of two personalities closely linked to the BSPC and its work: Hans Olsson, the Swedish ambassador, had passed away the preceding Friday. The year before, he had been chairman of the Senior Officials of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. With him, the BSPC were losing a very experienced personality in Baltic Sea cooperation who had reported on the CBSS work during the BSPC’s annual conference in Hamburg, and at the Standing Committee meeting in February 2018 in Brussels, he had discussed a number of proposals for deepening cooperation between the BSPC and the CBSS. Ms Veit noted their gratitude for his work and emphasised that his commitment would not be forgotten.She also commemorated the long and successful career of her colleague and friend, Ms Sylvia Bretschneider, former President of the BSPC and President of the State Parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Her death, Ms Veit said, was still a deep shock for her and many among them. For Sylvia Bretschneider, cross-border cooperation in the Baltic Sea area had been an essential part of the European integration, it had been a matter close to her heart. As president, she had not only led her parliament’s delegation at the annual BSPC conferences, but she had always accepted additional tasks and responsibilities. Ms Veit thought that this had been a special trait of Ms Bretschneider’s, not only to exercise one’s duties but to think and to work beyond, the willpower to make a difference and to get others onboard and to convince them. Ms Bretschneider had taken the BSPC conference to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and had been its president in 2014-2015, emphasising two points: One had been the promotion of social and health policies, leading to a comprehensive resolution on that subject; her other primary issue had been sustainable tourism. She had been the Chair of the BSPC working group on that issue and afterwards one of the BSPC Rapporteurs on that theme. For more than 15 years, she had also been the BSPC observer at HELCOM. For Ms Bretschneider, the Baltic Sea had been a sea of peace, of wealth and of cooperation. The Baltic Sea area had to be a region of close neighbourliness in which democratic values, the rule of law, human rights and equal opportunities were valid. This had been her concern and her vision. That had been stressed by the late Ms Bretschneider at the Warnemünde conference, with her wish for the peaceful coexistence of the nations. After her speech commemorating the sixty million dead of the Second World War, she had sung the international hymn for peace, “We Shall Overcome”, and the whole conference had joined in. Ms Veit pointed out that this was how they should remember Ms Sylvia Bretschneider.Security and Peace in the Baltic Sea regionThe meeting further discussed the topic of Security and Peace in the Baltic Sea region, with special emphasis on arms control and confidence building.Dr Margret Johannsen, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH), gave insights from the peace research community. She underlined that in the first decade and a half after the end of the Cold War, cooperative security agreements and confidence-building measures had contributed significantly to military predictability and stability in Europe, namely the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, the Vienna Document on Security and Confidence-Building Measures as well as the Treaty on Open Skies. Up to the 2000s, the military situation in Europe had been characterised by a mix of cooperative and deterrent elements. The dominant view, however, had been that the overall situation had been stable. With the Ukrainian war, this view had changed fundamentally. In her opinion, the dominant view these days was that the intentions of the other side were aggressive, that the situation was unpredictable, forcing each side to strengthen their respective deterrent capability. This shaped threat perceptions, military disposition as well as the exercise behaviour of the involved states. Furthermore, threat perception and military measures focused on those two zones in which NATO states and Russia were directly adjacent, the Baltic States and the Black Sea region. The strengthening of deterrence structures, she went on, was accompanied by a decline in the agreements on cooperative arms control. The security architecture in Europe, designed in the past decades, had all but fallen apart. The COV treaty was politically dead.However, the treaty was still important as a model for future arms control treaties on non-bloc issues, such as information exchange and verification. The suspension of the COV treaty in 2007 had led to a loss of transparency that could not be compensated by the few inspections and evaluations based on the Vienna document of 2011. Therefore, it would be appropriate to thoroughly modernise it. Even the Treaty on Open Skies, a transparency measure that opened the complete territory of the 34 state parties for cooperative observation flights had not been immune to dispute, as evidenced the year before. More or less relevant were regulations in two politically binding documents, the Russia Founding Act of 1997 and the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Final Act of 1999. In the Founding Act, NATO states had undertaken not to stage substantial combat troops in the new NATO states on a permanent basis, while conversely, Russia had undertaken in the CFE Final Act not to station such forces in the Kaliningrad and Pskov oblasts. Nonetheless, every combination of deterrents harboured risks of further escalation. The mutual distrust and the inability to accept the other as a partner had grown to such an extent that conflict regulation formats – which so far had functioned to a certain degree – were no longer effective. The conclusion for the present time was that progress in the field of arms control was an extremely difficult undertaking. Still, it was essential to try to keep arms control on the agenda, to avoid deterioration and to be prepared when a window of opportunity for negotiation should open again. In the future, though, it would be much more important to record the qualitative development steps in weapon systems and their interaction rather than to list and compare the numbers of individual weapon systems, as had been common.Dr Johannsen wondered what could be done in the meantime to avoid the pitfalls of the present situation. Both the structured dialogue and confidence building, risk reduction and arms control in the OEC area launched in Hamburg in December 2016 as well as the informal group of now 24 like-minded states from the OSCE area had taken on the challenge. However, it was not at all clear on what issues to focus the structural dialogue. One could speak of a two-camp mentality here. Without going into detail, she considered it safe to say that a majority of states felt that the political climate was not yet ripe for conventional arms control. At the same time, lessons learned from the Cold War implied that arms control was possible, even during confrontational times, as long as there was an overarching common interest to avoid open war. After all, dialogue among antagonists did not equal appeasement but rather was a precondition for building trust. Direct communication was important for de-escalation.In March 1989, the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg had hosted the so-called Generals’ Meeting. Officers of the West German Bundeswehr and officers of the East German National People’s Army had met on the institute’s premises for a day-long talk on military doctrines, threat perceptions and common security. Thirty years later, with a new comprehensive arms control agreement currently not negotiable and a legally binding treaty seeming most unlikely, the speaker wondered what alternatives were available. Small steps seemed to be more promising than working through the large blueprint of a comprehensive agreement. So-called voluntary political declarations might work and could play a role in arms control areas that remained far removed from formal agreements. She pointed out that this was not a new idea. Especially at the end of the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet leaders had made reciprocal, unilateral pledges to substantially limit and reduce their nuclear weaponry, most notably their tactical – or battlefield – nuclear weapons. This might be a model to drag the arms control process out of the current rut.The idea dated back to a model presented by Charles Osgood at a time when the world had seemed close to war, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, nine months after the building of the Berlin Wall. Other, less fancy initiatives, she went on, could include creating zones of disengagement and transparency in the so-called contact zones between NATO and Russia. Instead of aiming at a new comprehensive arms control agreement, it might be better to establish zones of stability on both sides of the common borders of the alliance. Focusing on the Baltic Sea region, such a zone could include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the part of Germany where, according to the 2+4 Treaty, foreign armed forces and nuclear weapons would not be stationed. On the other hand, equivalent parts of the western military district of Russia and Belarus could be included. Sweden and Finland ideally would also be invited to participate in some form, too. In this zone, the permanent and temporary deployment of armed forces as well as the size and character of military exercises would be significantly limited. All measures would be subject to a strict transparency regime. Ms Johannsen pointed out that this was the gist of a proposal of the OSCE network of thinktanks and academic institutions on reducing the risk of conventional deterrence in Europe, as of December 2018. The authors claimed that their approach combined two advantages: First, it concentrated on the perceived dangers of surprise attacks and crisis escalation in the NATO-Russia contact zones as a result of the increased build-up of conventional deterrent structures; second, it did not call for new arms control instruments but for the adaptation of existing ones, based on the assessment that the second option was easier to achieve than the first.Dr Johannsen concluded by offering a contradictory statement, as she called it. On the one hand, she still believed that dialogue between antagonists was necessary for building trust and that direct communication was important for de-escalation. However, she also considered it true that of the three documents she had mentioned earlier – the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, the Vienna Document and the Treaty on Open Skies -, the latter was by far the most successful one. This raised the question of why the partners continued to adhere to this treaty. It seemed that all partners valued the confidence-building aspect of this practice. The images obtained could be shared among all 34 treaty signatories, offering data to countries without sophisticated satellite systems. Its design was quite different from the CFE Treaty or the Vienna Document. Open Skies, she underlined, opened the complete territory for aerial observation. The images taken were shared between the observing and the observed states; joint teams were on board; the processing of film or digital data was done jointly. The openness, however, had limitations, such as prior notice of an observation flight and the focus on monitoring static military inventory and infrastructure, recording changes over longer periods of time. Tactical, short-term reconnaissance, Dr Johannsen said, was beyond the scope of the treaty. The speaker wondered if the secret of the Open Skies treaty lay in its limitations as well as in the manifold purposes it served. Some states seemed primarily interested in factual information, provided by the images, while others, outside the contact zone, seemed to value Open Skies as a channel for security cooperation and dialogue with Russia in presently tense times.According to a seasoned German expert on Open Skies, Mr Hartwig Spitzer, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom belonged to this latter category. Maybe it was the functional utility of the treaty, together with its limited intrusiveness, that explained its continued appreciation. However, as Mr Spitzer had observed, this appreciation was restricted to branches of government, and some parliamentary and scientific circles believed that Open Skies worked mainly below the attention of the general public and the media. Perhaps this explained, at least in part, its success. If so, Ms Johannsen wondered what this implied for foreign and security policy in democratic states with a free press. She emphasised that this was an open question. The key challenge these days was the relevance of Open Skies to conflict areas. The notion of a so-called status-neutral approach had been put forward to increase the relevance of the treaty in volatile regions. Such an approach would allow confidence- and security-building measures without pre-empting the outcome of status talks or referring to the status claims of the parties involved. Given the risk of escalation, the need to find a pragmatic resolution was greater than ever. She reiterated that the status-neutral approach seemed to be the most practical way forward. Instead of solving the underlying controversies by means of negotiations, the parties could make do with certain prevention methods and hoping for better times to come.Cooperation in the Baltic Sea regionState Councillor Dr Annette Tabbara addressed the BSPC Standing Committee on behalf of the senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in her responsibility for all foreign relations of Hamburg, including the contact to the federal government, the European Union as well as international issues. The latter were widespread, she noted, considering that Hamburg had been a trading city for centuries. The city’s focus, though, was on the Baltic Sea region. Regarding the Town Hall building, she pointed out that beyond its beauty, it also housed both the senate and the bürgerschaft, i.e. the parliament. This, she said, showed that the people in Hamburg liked to work together closely. In her view, this was equally true of the BSPC, concerning the Baltic Sea nations. She saw the latter and Hamburg facing the same concerns, such as the challenge of climate change, digitalization, the shortage of a qualified labour force as well as reaching the sustainable development goals – for their own benefit, as she added. All these topics were national topics but could not be handled only at the national level; instead, they had to be dealt with transnationally. This was where exchange such as that of the BSPC was so important.The speaker noted that the fields of cooperation in the Baltic Sea region were already manifold, including for instance the Hamburg Institute for Vocational Training which was playing an active role in the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. With their Swedish partners from the Norden Association, they were coordinating the policy area to implement this as a key objective which would increase prosperity in the whole region. Furthermore, Hamburg was very active in the network called String which was more than just a network, representing a geographical region that might be called a “mega region” extending from Hamburg via Malmö, Copenhagen up north to Oslo. String was a connection aimed at bringing forward the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link but had developed ever since into an understanding of a metropolitan region that was not only very well educated but had also set itself the goal of green growth. Moreover, she mentioned Hamburg’s city partnership with St Petersburg in Russia; only the day before, Dr Tabbara had had very good conversations there. The partnership had been in place for sixty years since 1957 which the speaker considered a very impressive achievement. There was another close relationship with Kaliningrad; just a few days earlier, the mayor of the latter city had been in Hamburg to re-confirm a memorandum of understanding. The memorandum would further strengthen their mutual cooperation mainly in the fields of culture but also concerning business and civil society exchange.Dr Tabbara reiterated the role of Hamburg as a harbour city, as a trading city, with a very long tradition. That, however, also involved connecting people as an element of trade. Hamburg was Germany’s largest port and ranked third in Europe. The city’s trade connections largely covered the nations of the Baltic Sea, not least as legacy to the old trade network of the Hanseatic League which represented the joint history of the region. The values of the Hanseatic League were still valid in the present day as well, encompassing free but also rule-based trade, continuous solidarity between members, and for Hamburg citizens, the League also represented the concept of the “honourable merchant” – a phrase in German meaning that the goal was not to cheat the partner but to continue trading with that partner for as long as possible by treating each other well and honourably. Bringing the thought back to the present, she suggested these values and the legacy should be part of their common strategy to overcome protectionism and nationalism, to make global business effective for both sides. In this sense, she underlined the importance of the BSPC, also for the senate of Hamburg. It was good that they were connecting with each other and promoting their shared values.Cooperation with the PABSECIn its activities this year, the BSPC Standing Committee has taken a decisive step to go beyond the deliberations in its own meetings .Through a joint meeting with the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC), the memorandum of understanding agreed with the PABSEC led to a new dimension of cooperation.The Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees of the BSPC and the PABSEC on the topic “Safeguarding our Oceans and Marine Life” was held in Istanbul. The meeting was attended by parliamentarians from Albania, Azerbaijan, the Baltic Assembly, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hamburg, Latvia, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Turkey and Ukraine as well as experts in these issues from the Black Sea Region and from HELCOM as well as from international organizations in Turkey.The participants expressed their highest esteem for this session and called for these meetings to continue.The speeches at the Opening Session were delivered by Mr Cemal Oztürk, the PABSEC Vice-President and the Head of the PABSEC Turkish Delegation, Mr Jorodd Asphjell, the President of the BSPC, as well as the Secretaries General of both organisations. The speakers noted the successful start to the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding between the PABSEC and the BSPC and the usefulness of further continuation of the joint activities in the future.During the discussions, interventions were made by Prof Jānis Vucāns, the President of the Baltic Assembly, Mr Konstantinos Morfidis, the Head of the PABSEC Hellenic Delegation, Ms Valentina Pivnenko, the Head of the Russian Delegation to the BSPC, Mr George Visan, member of the PABSEC Romanian Delegation, Ms Carola Veit, the President of the State Parliament of Hamburg, Ms Olena Masorina, member of the PABSEC Ukrainian delegation, Mr Andrea Marto, the PABSEC Vice-President and the Head of the PABSEC Albanian Delegation, Mr Eldar Guliyev, the Head of the PABSEC Azerbaijani Delegation, Mr Mikhail Emelianov, Head of the PABSEC Russian delegation, Mr Pyry Niemi, the Head of the Swedish delegation to the BSPC, and Ms Cecilie Tenfjord Toftby, the Vice-Head of the Swedish delegation to the BSPC.Presentations were made by the following experts: Ms Iryna Makarenko, representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution, Mr Markus Helavuori, the representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission – the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), Professor Bairam Ozturk, President of the Turkish Marine Research Foundation of Istanbul University, and Mrs Rositsa Stoeva, Executive Manager of the BSEC PERMIS. The experts answered a number of questions from the MPs and discussed with them the challenges of a sustainable maritime policy.In the course of the meeting, both MPs and experts provided a wide range of information on the state of the two seas as well as on necessary measures to improve their ecological status but also on the corresponding activities to protect the seas in individual countries of both regions.At the end, the importance of organising the joint activities between the two Assemblies was emphasised, and it was decided to continue the practice of holding such joint meetings in the future. The sides agreed to prepare a joint documentation according to the results of the meeting.The head of the Swedish delegation to the BSPC, Mr Pyry Niemi, offered to host a further meeting in 2020 in Stockholm.BSPC Working Group on Migration and IntegrationMembers of the BSPC Working Group on Migration and Integration informed the Standing Committee in each meeting about the activities of the WG. The details are reported in the 2nd interim report of the WG which will be published on the BSPC Website.BSPC PresidentWe have not only deepened the content and strategic priorities of our strategy and work programme by bringing experts to our meetings on these topics, but we also have participated in the high-level events of our friends and partner organisations and become involved there.It is the honourable duty of the BSPC President to meet with our partners and other parliamentary organisations. I had – inter alia – the pleasure of addressing during my Chairmanship:the 70th Session of the Nordic Council in Oslo,the XX International Environmental Forum “Baltic Sea Day” on 22 March in St. Petersburg, where we spoke with representatives of the Finnish government, the CBSS, HELCOM, BSSSC and a number of scientists,the 52nd and the 53rd General Assembly meetings of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC).Together with Valentina Pivnenko we participated inthe 2nd International Forum on the Development of Parliamentarism in Moscow.Delegates from 80 parliaments all over the world and participants from more than 130 countries attended. I addressed the plenary session and we gave additional speeches during several workshops, informing about the contents of the BSPC work.During the Forum, the delegation of the BSPC had a bilateral meeting on 3 June with the Vice-Chair of the State Duma of the General Assembly of the Russian Federation, further Vice-Chairmen and further deputies of the State Duma as well as the President of the IPU.The key messages at all these events were:Based on our fundamental convictions, I pointed out the vital importance of international parliamentary cooperation – especially in tense times.Several times, I highlighted that we want to make every effort to live in a free, peaceful and prosperous world based on democratic values and human rights.I repeatedly underlined the need for interparliamentary dialogue and to strengthen the influence of parliaments. We are the voice of the people who want peace, security, prosperity and freedom.I, of course, also emphasised in this context that for my homeland, Norway, and my home city of Trondheim, the sea is a central lifeline and living space. For us, it is fundamental that the oceans are healthy and clean.That is why Norway wants to develop a roadmap for the transition to a sustainable ocean economy.In line with our resolution from last year, I pointed out in my speeches that we must stop destroying the world's marine ecosystems. We must improve the environmental status of the oceans.It is in our collective interest to jointly develop more far-reaching measures and proposals for the UN Ocean Conference 2019 and to try to establish them together at the UN level as well as to reach more decisive action at the international level.The current situation shows us that appeals alone are not enough. We must act more broadly and make more significant efforts.Therefore, I made clear that the BSPC is calling for stricter action at the national level necessary to reinstate the health of the seas.The issue of plastic litter on a global scale, moreover, is a question of a progressive foreign and trade policy.Therefore, I called for even more and closer transnational cooperation on this issue.It is essential to develop or enhance joint and additional national and regional sustainability strategies to meet the United Nation’s Agenda 2030 goals: to achieve delivering the oceans we need for the future we want.BSPC Rapporteurs and further activitiesOur rapporteurs and further members of the Standing Committee as well as the Secretary General have been to a number of events and have taken on board the findings relevant to several policy fields. This is detailed in the written and oral reports to follow. The tremendous work behind all this becomes apparent when one looks at the reports that have been published on our website.At all these events, the current decisions and calls for action of the BSPC were pointed out to increase support for our positions and calls for action.Beate Schlupp for example addressed the Baltic Sea Tourism Forum in Riga. Pyry Niemi and Johannes Schraps attended the Baltic Sea Labour Forum Round Table and CBSS/BSLF Cooperation Group Meeting in Hamburg. Jörgen Pettersson participated in the CBSS conference on the “Development of sustainable maritime economy: opportunities and challenges for small and medium ports in the Baltic Sea Region” in Jurmala. Pyry Niemi and the Secretary General participated in panel discussions during the 10th Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR). The Secretary General additionally addressed the General Assembly of the BSSSC in Gdansk and the Parliamentary Forum of the Southern Baltic Sea and also attended the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme Conference 2019.Regarding the BSPC rapporteurs, we can note a very positive development: They are increasingly participating in CBSS events. In that way, they form a bridge and deepen the cooperation between the BSPC and the CBSS.For the first time during the Annual Conference, it will be possible to achieve that, on a central theme of the Conference, the future of working life, we have a number of ministers and secretaries of state from the relevant ministries in the Baltic Sea region as speakers at the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. At the same time, they are holding a High-Level Meeting of the CBSS back-to-back with the BSPC. This was a goal discussed with the CBSS last year, and it has already been achieved this year.Both the high-level cooperation in the Baltic Sea region at the executive level and the exchange of views between parliaments and governments have been intensified.The reactions of governments to our resolutions in their implementation statements have intensified step by step and year by year, thus underlining that we have built two strong pillars on which our cooperation with the governments rests.All the previously mentioned expert hearings, all participation in international events, all the deliberations and discussions we have had form the basis for the 28th BSPC and this year's resolution.Sinnika Bohlin, the former President of the BSPC and the Nordic Council, said at the BSPC in 2009, no members of government would attend the conference and emphasised the need to achieve this goal. Today, we have been very successful on this course over the years since then.We have further deepened our internal contacts and relationships through many discussions and close cooperation. We have grown more and more into one family.We decided to have again a general debate without restricting the content in order to give everyone the opportunity to contribute what is particularly close to his or her heart. The general debate of the last conference has shown that if we work together trustfully for many years, if we know each other, then we can exchange hard positions on any subject and at the same time work together very constructively and with respect for each other.ConclusionsThis year can perhaps be summed up as follows:We have grown even closer on the inside and stronger and more present on the outside.We have reached new fundamental goals.We have visibly deepened the cooperation with our main partners andincreased the reaction on our calls for action.What we can see is that everyone we deal with feels and seesthat we are looking deeper than perhaps in previous years at issues,that our demand is based on a solid foundation, andthat we are not satisfied with the surface but dig deeperto construct a stable building on a stable foundation for the further development of our region.This creates interactions that promote developments and strengthenthe parliamentary dimension throughout the region through our cooperation.I hope that year after year, we will succeed better and better for the people who elected us.Let us all together work for peace and a bright future.That is what our voters, what the people in our countries expect from us.Closer interparliamentary cooperation will help us to reach these goals better and faster.Let us go on to successfully cooperate.