Sustainable democracy – how to face a changing world

30 BSPC30YEARSBaltic Sea Parliamentary ConferenceThe 30th Baltic SeaParliamentary ConferenceSustainable democracy –how to face a changing world30 August 202130The 30th Baltic SeaParliamentary ConferenceSustainable democracy –how to face a changing world30 August 202130 BSPCYEARSBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference2The 30th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC)Sustainable democracy – how to face a changing world was established in 1991 as a forum for politicaldialogue between parliamentarians from the Bal-tic Sea Region. BSPC aims at raising awarenessand opinion on issues of current political interestand relevance for the Baltic Sea Region. It pro-Text: Marc Hertel and Bodo Bahr motes and drives various initiatives and efforts toLayout: Produktionsbüro TINUS support a sustainable environmental, social andeconomic development of the Baltic Sea Region.It strives at enhancing the visibility of the BalticSea Region and its issues in a wider Europeancontext.BSPC gathers parliamentarians from 11national parliaments, 11 regional parliamentsand 5 parliamentary organizations around theBaltic Sea. The BSPC thus constitutes aunique parliamentary bridge between all theEU- and non-EU countries of the Baltic SeaRegion.BSPC external interfaces include parlia-mentary, governmental, sub-regional andother organizations in the Baltic Sea Regionand the Northern Dimension area, amongthem CBSS, HELCOM, the NorthernDimension Partnership in Health and SocialWell-Being (NDPHS), the Baltic Sea LabourForum (BSLF), the Baltic Sea States Sub-re-gional Cooperation (BSSSC) and the BalticDevelopment Forum.BSPC shall initiate and guide politicalactivities in the region; support and strengthendemocratic institutions in the participatingstates; improve dialogue between govern-ments, parliaments and civil society;strengthen the common identity of the BalticSea Region by means of close co-operationbetween national and regional parliaments onthe basis of equality; and initiate and guideBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference political activities in the Baltic Sea Region,Bodo Bahr endowing them with additional democraticSecretary General legitimacy and parliamentary authority.+49 171 5512557 The political recommendations of thebodo.bahr@bspcmail.net annual Parliamentary Conferences arewww.bspc.net expressed in a Conference Resolution adoptedby consensus by the Conference. The adoptedResolution shall be submitted to the govern-BSPC Secretariat ments of the Baltic Sea Region, the CBSS andSchlossgartenallee 15 the EU, and disseminated to other relevant19061 Schwerin national, regional and local stakeholders in theGermany Baltic Sea Region and its neighbourhood.3ContentsTHE OPENING ................................... 5FIRST SESSIONCooperationin the Baltic Sea Region .............................. 15SECOND SESSIONDemocracy in aChanging Media Landscape ........................... 24GENERAL DEBATERe-starting after theCOVID-19 pandemic ............................... 45THIRD SESSIONClimate Change and Biodiversity ....................... 58CEREMONIAL SESSIONin Honour of the 30th BSPC .......................... 85FOURTH SESSIONAddresses and Reports .............................. 105CLOSING SESSION .............................. 129LIST OF PARTICIPANTS .......................... 133PHOTOS ....................................... 1454 Opening of the ConferenceOpening of the Conference 5THE OPENINGChair: Mr Pyry Niemi, President of the BSPCIntroductionBSPC President Pyry Niemi opened the 30th Baltic Sea Parliamen-tary Conference on 30 August 2021. They were happy to see all ofthem attending. He promised it would be a great day, noting thathe was looking forward to listening to all of the sessions and inter-esting remarks, interventions and comments as well as speeches,discussions, debates and contributions. A great day, he added, eventhough they had to do with digital once again. Next year, though,he was sure they would be able to meet physically in Stockholm inSweden again. He yielded the floor to the speaker of the Swedishparliament – the Riksdag –, Dr Andreas Norlén.Speech by Dr Andreas Norlén,Speaker of the Swedish RiksdagDr Andreas Norlén thanked the president, the members of parlia-ment, government representatives and other attendees. He wasdelighted to have this opportunity to meet them. This was the thirdtime the Riksdag had hosted the BSPC, and of course, they hadbeen looking forward to welcoming them to Stockholm. Not onlyhad the pandemic changed their plans, but it had also changed soci-eties in many ways.6 Opening of the ConferenceDr Andreas Norlén, Speaker of the Swedish RiksdagHe was happy to note that there were around 190 people participat-ing in the conference, members of both national and regional par-liaments from all of the Baltic Sea countries and beyond. Theymight not be in the same room, but they could nevertheless talk andexchange views. This was as important as ever, he underlined, oreven more so due to the very special circumstances they were expe-riencing. Indeed, they were living through interesting and verychallenging times. It was fair to say that the last 30 years had broughtconsiderable change to the Baltic Sea region. The Fall of the IronCurtain had shaped a new geopolitical landscape as had the processof EU integration when several of the countries of the Baltic Searegion had become members of the European Union. The last 30years had brought economic growth but also financial crises.Democracies had matured but in more recent years, they had alsoseen democratic backsliding and an undermining of the rule of law.Digitisation had provided them with new tools while at the sametime presenting them with new challenges.Despite the fact that the region had undergone major changes overthe past three decades, much also remained the same. The first Bal-tic Sea Parliamentary Conference, held in 1991, had been created asa forum for political dialogue between parliamentarians in theregion, with the aim of strengthening cooperation and raisingawareness of issues of common concern, promoting cross-borderregional collaboration and working together to achieve commongoals. These continued to be as important today as they had been 30years earlier. Sharing best practices, promoting parliamentary coop-eration and cooperating in order to deal with common challenges,such as climate change or Baltic Sea environmental issues, were stillon the agenda. The COVID-19 pandemic was most recent proof ofOpening of the Conference 7the ongoing need to preserve cooperation as well as protect democ-racy. During the crisis, difficult and sometimes rapid decisions hadbeen taken to stop the spread of the virus. In times like this, it wasvital to have well-functioning parliaments that could scrutinise andevaluate decisions and protect the freedoms and rights of citizens.Parliament was at the heart of democracy, just as the Baltic Sea wasat the heart of the region. It was necessary to continue to protectand preserve them both. The pandemic had also underlined theimportance of interparliamentary cooperation. Dr Norlén empha-sised the fact that the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference hadquickly adapted to the new circumstances and had held its annualconference online back in August of the previous year. The speakerapplauded the BSPC’s achievement.The current Swedish presidency went under the title SustainableDemocracy, pointing to democratic institutions, strong coopera-tion and environmental and social sustainability as cornerstonesof the organisation. This theme was also connected to the Swedishparliament’s commemoration and celebration of 100 years ofdemocracy. In September 2021, just a few weeks later, one centurywould have passed since women had been allowed to vote for thefirst time in parliamentary elections in Sweden. Dr Norlén stronglybelieved that democracy was worth commemorating and celebrat-ing to revitalise it. The purpose of celebrating the centenary was togenerate engagement and understanding of the importance anddevelopment of democracy in Sweden, in a historical perspectiveand for the future. That would also increase knowledge of the pro-cess of democratisation and the role that the Swedish parliamentboth in history and the present day. By increasing the knowledgeof history, the understanding of and the engagement in politicstoday would increase. The democracy centenary, he went on, alsoserved as a reminder that democratic values, participation, equal-ity before the law and trust in the democratic system were nothingthat one could take for granted. It was necessary to always keepstriving to protect and develop their democratic institutions andsystems.On this note, Dr Norlén mentioned that the main issue was youthparticipation which was expressed through the organisation of theBaltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum in connection with this year’sannual conference. Young people were the future. Older peopleought to – and indeed had to – listen to their opinions and encour-age their political engagement. Intergenerational cooperationhelped them to protect and develop their democracy. He added thatwhen listening to young people, he was always filled with hope –8 Opening of the Conferencethey had the engagement, the compassion and the courage to takeon the challenges that lay ahead.When reflecting on historical events, there was a tendency to takethe outcome for granted. But the breakthrough for democracy wasnever something that could be taken for granted. It could not betaken for granted in Sweden a hundred years before, not in the Bal-tic Sea region thirty years earlier, and nor could it be taken forgranted in the present day.Thirty years ago, the parliamentarians’ predecessors had establishedthis cooperation across the Baltic Sea. The coming thirty yearswould bring new challenges and new opportunities. The BSPC wasa forum for political dialogue with the purpose of strengtheningcross-border cooperation in the region. Meetings, formal and infor-mal conversations as well as the exchange of ideas and experienceswere all crucial part of this work. In this spirit, Dr Norlén took thisopportunity to welcome the attendees to the Swedish parliament on12 – 14 June 2022. He hoped that by then, they would be able tomeet in person. The Speaker wished everyone a successful confer-ence with fruitful discussions and debates.President Pyry Niemi thanked Dr Norlén for his impressive contri-bution. He next introduced the esteemed Minister for ForeignAffairs in Sweden, Ms Ann Linde.Speech by Ms Ann Linde,Minister for Foreign Affairs in SwedenMs Ann Linde thanked the president and her audience for the oppor-tunity to address them on the very day the BSPC was also celebratingthirty years of fruitful parliamentary cooperation. The main theme ofthe Swedish presidency of the BSPC – Sustainable Democracy – wasvery timely. Democratic backsliding, challenges to human rights andthe undermining of the rule of law were trends they had witnessed forseveral years. It took time – sometimes generations – to build up sta-ble and independent democratic institutions but they could be dis-mantled very quickly. Over the past year, they had witnessed how therespect for human rights had been seriously challenged, both in theirneighbourhood and elsewhere. Members of parliament had animportant role to preserve and protect democracy and human rights.The COVID-19 pandemic had had a clear and negative effect on theOpening of the Conference 9Ms Ann Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs in Swedenrespect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Restrictionsimposed to limit the spread of the virus had to be fully in line withinternational law. It was necessary to follow this closely. It was alsonecessary to pay particular attention to the gender perspective.Women and girls had been much more exposed during the pandemicthan men. The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference and the Councilof the Baltic Sea States were important partners in highlighting andtackling these challenges. Sweden was a strong voice and actor for thepromotion and protection of human rights, democracy and the ruleof law globally. These were also key to Sweden’s OSCE chairperson-ship and a reminder that all the CBSS members had made a commit-ment to respect these values and principles. It was the Swedish side’sfirm belief that democracy was the best foundation for a sustainablesociety.Yet democracy was in decline across the world. That was a deeplyworrying trend, Minister Linde underlined. At the same time, aspi-rations for democracy were still strong in many parts of the world.It was necessary to ensure that those fighting for democracy weresupported and defended. Since 2019, Sweden had pursued a fullforeign policy initiative called The Drive for Democracy, with theaim to provide a counternarrative to the global trend of democraticbacksliding and the shrinking space for civil society. For most peo-ple, the case for democracy was clear: It provided political account-ability and therefore a mechanism for correcting mistakes and doingbetter. Democracy also ensured transparency and access to informa-tion and enabled everyone to make their voice heard and getinvolved in building their common future. Through diplomaticactivity and the series of events, the Swedish Drive for Democracyaimed to promote and strengthen respect for human rights, democ-10 Opening of the Conferenceracy and the rule of law. Other aspects also supporting sustainabledemocracy were also included, not least equality, participation, sus-tainable development, inclusive growth, governance and security.Democratic societies depended on the respect for freedom of opin-ion and freedom of expression. These were fundamental conditionsenabling several other freedoms and rights and thus served as thefoundation of a functioning democracy. However, Ms Linde cau-tioned that attacks and restrictions on free and independent mediaand civil society were often used as tools to undermine democracy,human rights and the rule of law. This was also true for trade unions,demanding human rights in the world of work. There was thereforea great need to draw attention to and strengthen freedom of expres-sion in a wider sense – both to protect freedom of expression as suchbut also to support the ones acting for human rights. The threatsand challenges these actors face worldwide had to be addressed, sheunderlined. The pandemic had shown how vulnerable and inter-linked societies were, making cross-border cooperation even morenecessary. Climate change was another challenge in the region forthe citizens and their safety, best met in cooperation with neigh-bours. Much of the strength of the Council of the Baltic Sea Stateslay in its ability to function in a concrete and practical manner, evenin times of difficult international relations and when everybody hadbeen strongly affected by the pandemic. This cooperation had aproven track record of successful results of tackling cross-borderchallenges, such as climate change, youth unemployment, socialand gender inequalities and the protection of children at risk.Minister Linde saw four areas where there was a particular need andindeed an opportunity to reinforce this cooperation: First, peo-ple-to-people contacts in cooperation, particularly between youngpeople. This bound people together and served as a platform forbuilding long-term relationships. Such contacts made lives richerand increased understanding which made the Baltic Sea regionmore secure. The outcome of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary YouthForum on 28 August and the Baltic Sea Youth Platform were valu-able contributions to this end. The minister had heard that theyouth forum on Saturday had been very good, with good dialogue.Cross-border cooperation between schools on different levels shouldalso be encouraged. Second, the fight against international organ-ised crime, closer ties between the Baltic Sea taskforce on organisedcrime – where Ms Linde herself had been the personal representa-tive of the prime minister when she had been Vice Minister ofHome Affairs – and the CBSS should increase their ability to fightorganised crime, including trafficking human beings for sexual andlabour exploitation. Third, cross-border cooperation in civil protec-tion. Their efforts in this area had to be flexible and wide-ranging,Opening of the Conference 11covering everything from dealing with the effects of the pandemicto wildfires. It was necessary to strengthen cooperation and net-works to ensure that adequate resources were available in the region.Fourth, the environment. The Baltic Sea was heavily polluted, theupdated Baltic Sea Action Plan was a promising step in dealing withthis common challenge, but more concrete action was needed toachieve sustainable results. As part of their efforts, it was alsorequired to support sustainable shipping and ports.To conclude, Minister Linde said she was convinced that therecently agreed direction of CBSS activities would prove valuableand help the organisation to deliver concrete results to the benefit ofthe member states and people of the Baltic Sea region. She waslooking forward to continuing their robust support and coopera-tion with Norway.President Pyry Niemi thanked the minister for her important words.Overview of the BSPC’s Past Activities byBSPC President Pyry NiemiBSPC President Pyry Niemi noted that two years had passed bysince the BSPC had last met in person in Oslo. The COVID-19pandemic and the restrictions imposed to stop the spread of thevirus had affected all of them not only in their daily lives, but alsoin the framework of their parliamentary cooperation. The presidentwas convinced that all of them were looking forward to being ableto meet again and to engage in conversations not only during theConference but also in the important sidelines.With that said, he was very proud that the work of the BSPC hadpermanently continued during the pandemic. With online meet-ings, seminars and deliberations, they had done their best to workfor a better future for the Baltic Sea region together – not letting thepandemic interrupt their intense cooperation and contacts.The current Swedish Presidency went under the title SustainableDemocracy and focused on how to face common challenges in achanging world where new circumstances had emphasised the needto preserve and protect what was good and address the challengesthat lay ahead by adapting to changes. Democratic institutions,solid cross-border cooperation as well as environmental and socialsustainability were cornerstones of the BSPC: Preserving these hadbeen their priority throughout the year.12 Opening of the ConferenceAs already pointed out, since its foundation in 1991, one of thestated goals of the BSPC had been to support and strengthen dem-ocratic institutions, and it was necessary to continue in this direc-tion. This year, it had been 100 years ago that women had beengiven the right to vote in Sweden. The Swedish Parliament’s celebra-tion of 100 years of democracy was a reminder that democracy wasnothing that one could take for granted: It was necessary to strivefor democracy and democratic values every day.The spread of COVID-19 and the fight against the pandemic wasyet another reason to safeguard democratic values, and the speakernoted that this had also provided a reason to appreciate and safe-guard the strong cross-border cooperation at the heart of the BSPC.Many of the challenges in the region went beyond borders, and thecooperation and intention to find solutions must do the same.At the BSPC’s online Standing Committee meeting in November,they had discussed the topic of democracy more intensively – withexpert presentations on democracy and political participation andhow this had changed over time. They had also spoken about howyoung people could be involved in the decision-making processes inthe region.The president pointed out that these discussions had been contin-ued at an online seminar in connection with the Standing Commit-tee meeting in February, with expert presentations on democracy ina new media landscape: digitalisation, combating disinformationand fake news as well as protecting free media and freedom ofspeech – a discussion that would be continued at this Conference.At the Standing Committee meeting in February, the COVID-19pandemic had been discussed with particular regard to the situationand progress on vaccination through presentations by the WorldHealth Organization as well as the Northern Dimension Partner-ship in Public Health and Social Well-being. This was another topicthat would be addressed on this day.In May, President Niemi explained, the BSPC had once again heldan online Standing Committee meeting. In connection with thismeeting, they had discussed other challenges associated with thepandemic, such as youth employment and challenges to the welfaresystem in a digital age. Demographic changes, labour shortages andan ageing population had been other topics on the agenda.Another challenge that lay ahead, as had recently been shown in theIPCC Report, was climate change and how it was threatening bio-Opening of the Conference 13diversity in the region. The current working group, chaired by MsCecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, was focusing on these issues. Protecting theenvironment and safeguarding the Baltic Sea had been a top prior-ity of the BSPC for a long time and still was a core issue for theorganisation. More about the results of the working group would beheard later on during the Conference.An important aspect of the BSPC’s cooperation were their relationswith others. The increased and improved relationship with theCBSS and other Baltic Sea region organisations also strengthenedthe common identity of the region. People-to-people contacts andrelationships between citizens – this was the real backbone of theircooperation, the president underlined.Another aspect of parliamentary cooperation was evident in theBSPC’s partner organisations. The BSPC had for example contin-ued to fill their Memorandum of Understanding with the PABSECwith life even in times of the pandemic. In November, there hadbeen a joint meeting with the Standing Committees of the BSPCand the PABSEC, in which Minister Linde had also participated.During the meeting with the PABSEC, issues such as oceans, cli-mate and democracy had been discussed, issues that did not stop atnational borders but also called for solutions in supra-regional coop-eration. Another example was the strengthening of the BSPC’s rela-tion with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM)and the aim to sign a Memorandum of Understanding this fall.Traditionally, ever since their parliamentary organisation had beenfounded, there had been intense, close and, in every respect, pro-ductive and fruitful relations with other regional organisations. Thepresident was therefore happy to see so many people attendingtoday’s Conference.He noted that they often talked about the future of the Baltic Searegion – and what was the future if not the younger generation?Youth participation in decision-making processes had been an issuehigh on the agenda for several years. On the preceding Saturday, aBaltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum had been held. About 100young participants from the eleven countries in the BSPC hadattended and showed commitment, engagement and creativity inthe discussions both on democracy and on climate and biodiversity.President Niemi was very proud to have been a part of this success-ful event and he was also proud to say that three representatives ofthe youth forum had joined the parliamentarians in this Confer-ence who would share some of the main conclusions from theForum.14 Opening of the ConferenceAt today’s Conference, they would also celebrate 30 years of parlia-mentary cooperation. For 30 years, parliamentarians had directlyand indirectly been making a decisive contribution to realising whatthe people who had elected them primarily regarded as the mostimportant aim: stabilising and guaranteeing the peaceful coexist-ence of all people and countries in the region and, on this basis,achieving the highest possible level of prosperity and sustainable useand protection of the natural foundations of life.During a ceremonial session at this Conference, participants woulddiscuss and remember what the BSPC had accomplished and delib-erate on what lay ahead regarding cooperation in the Baltic Searegion today, yesterday and in the future.The BSPC had built its cooperation on contact between people,personal dialogue along with a familiar and friendly atmosphere.Even if this – due to the pandemic – had been difficult to achieveduring the previous one and half years, President Niemi was veryproud to say that the BSPC had been successful in continuing undi-minished and had even succeeded in deepening its work by shiftingto an online format. They had maintained and intensified the par-liamentary dimension of international cooperation in the Baltic Searegion.However, he cautioned that a digital format could not beat meetingin person. It was therefore his great pleasure, together with theSwedish delegation to the BSPC, to also host the 31st Conference,which was planned to be held in Stockholm on 12–14 June 2022.Finally, the president congratulated the Baltic Sea ParliamentaryConference on 30 years of parliamentary cooperation and wishedeveryone attending a successful Conference.On that note, President Niemi handed the screen over to the BSPCVice-President Johannes Schraps for the first session of the Confer-ence.First Session 15FIRST SESSIONCooperationin the Baltic Sea RegionChair: Mr Johannes Schraps, Vice-President of the BSPCBSPC Vice-President Johannes Schraps thanked the president notjust for giving him the floor but also for these very important intro-ductory words. He further offered his gratitude to Dr Norlén andMs Linde for their introductory speeches. In his mind, there hadalready been a lot of important topics mentioned that would be dis-cussed at the present Conference. As Vice-President, he felt hon-oured to chair the first session of this annual Conference, explainingthat this session traditionally dealt with cooperation in the BalticSea region. On this day, they wished to discuss this topic under theheadline of Peaceful and Reliable Neighbourliness and IntenseCooperation Built on Inclusive Participation and Trust in the Dem-ocratic System. That, he added, included the main goals of theBSPC’s cooperation for the last 30 years and their values. That wasalso what they were striving for, what they wished to keep at thehighest possible level in their respective countries and what theyalso wanted to see in their neighbouring countries. Only if theBSPC’s neighbours were based on the same fundamental principlesand foundations, they could expect to realise their own goals ofpeaceful surroundings.16 First SessionMr Schraps noted that just the preceding evening, together with theformer BSPC President Franz Thönnes who was also attending theConference, both of them had been at a very good meeting of theboard of the Norwegian-German Willy Brandt Foundation. Notjust this Norwegian-German cooperation was proof of the verygood bilateral relations between the countries of the BSPC, buteven more important for them were the excellent multilateral col-laborations in the Baltic Sea region, like the BSPC or the CBSS.Therefore, the Vice-President was particularly pleased that the Nor-wegian Minister of Foreign Affairs as the current chair of the CBSS,Ms Ine Eriksen Søreide, had agreed to speak to the BSPC on thisday – especially given the current trouble spots in the world, in par-ticular the situation in Afghanistan but also other developmentsand tense situations in the BSPC’s immediate neighbourhood, suchas in Belarus. These also required their full foreign policy attention.Accordingly, he noted their common delight that Minister Søreidehad made it possible to attend this Conference and give a speech.Mr Schraps noted that it was also of particular importance, also forthe BSPC’s work, that the Foreign Minister held the presidencywithin the CBSS. Some of the attendees, he added, had alreadybeen fascinated to hear her speech at the CBSS Foreign MinistersMeeting on 1 June 2021 as well as her address at the Barents SeaParliamentary Conference recently. Mr Schraps said that the attend-ees were very much looking forward to her speech and handed thescreen to her.Speech by Ms Ine Eriksen Søreide, Minister ofForeign Affairs of Norway, Chairwoman of the CBSSMinister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide thanked the BSPCfor the invitation and opened her speech by addressing all attend-ees, noting that she was very pleased to join the 30th BSPC annualConference. She warmly congratulated them on 30 years of collab-oration. She further extended a special greeting to former BSPCPresident Franz Thönnes whom she knew from many, many yearsback, especially during their work together in the Willy BrandtFoundation.The parliamentary cooperation that could be witnessed on this daywas of great importance. As many of the attendees would remem-ber, the Norwegian storting had had the pleasure of hosting the Bal-tic Sea Parliamentary Conference in Oslo two years earlier. MsFirst Session 17Ms Ine Eriksen Søreide, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway, Chair-woman of the CBSSSøreide believed, as a long-standing parliamentarian herself, thatconferences like these offered the opportunity to check the pulse ofpolitical cooperation and also discuss opportunities and challengesfacing the region. She very much valued these dialogue forums.This was a time of major change and ongoing challenges, as hadbeen mentioned in the introduction. The overall security policy sit-uation was also shifting. Stronger global political rivalries wereemerging, and many global fault lines were widening in a way. Itwas her belief that there was no doubt that the impact of climatechange was ongoing and also materialising around them as theywere speaking. On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic hadbrought serious disruption to their societies. One could see that thebarrier regions of the world were struggling with instability andunrest. Maybe the most dramatic and most current example was thepresent situation in Afghanistan. Combined with deteriorating liv-ing conditions in many places, the current crisis meant that one hadto expect and also prepare for new and persistent migration chal-lenges.Minister Søreide expected that all of them had seen the recentreport from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Itwas a wake-up call, and there was a need for an urgent globalresponse and the implantation of the green transition. The greenagenda had to be viewed as more of an opportunity for their societ-ies to become more technologically advanced, more equitable, as astimulus for growth and not necessarily as a burden on their econo-mies and communities. In her opinion, the green transition wasabsolutely possible. Much of it was already underway, she noted,18 First Sessionthat they all knew about. The minister pointed to what the Euro-pean Union was doing as what she perceived to be a global leadingforce in this matter with the European Green Deal and with the Fitfor Fifty-Five as major platforms for success. She had to note,though, that it was up to all of them to fill these platforms with thecontents that would make them successful. She was hopeful thatthis would have a positive effect across the entire region. When onelooked at the European Green Deal, seeing that it was both a growthstrategy but also a way of implementing the Paris Goals, she consid-ered it a wonderful package that all of them could make use of.However, she needed to mention that she was more concerned regard-ing the status of democracy and the rule of law. A weakening ofdemocracy and its institutions also constituted quite a threat to theirinternal cohesion. Political and economic success stories in the frame-work of European cooperation as well as in their individual countrieshad unfortunately not always been accompanied by increased trust inestablished political processes. Democracy, respect for human rightsand the rule of law, these were all values that they had to continue tofight for. At a time when fragmentation, when distrust, when polari-sation was on the rise in many countries, what they had to do waslearn from the past as they focused on the future. In her view, therewas a great responsibility resting on all of them – especially as politi-cal leaders from governments and parliaments – to work to counterthe negative trends by supporting cooperation, by seeking compro-mise and to find some common solutions through that strong globalgovernance that they had, based on agreed principles.Despite the many challenges facing them, she thought it fair to saythat the Baltic Sea region was a prosperous region. The eleven coun-tries that made up the region represented what she considered animpressive nine per cent of global GDP. Moreover, eight of theircountries were EU members. Trade among these as well as the threenon-EU members accounted for about one hundred and eighty-fivebillion euros annually. This was very much a reflection of a remark-able level of trade, professional contact and exchanges. She consid-ered the region to be a success, and they were probably better posi-tioned to handle the challenges coming their way than any othermacro region in the world. Of course, though, they could always dobetter. Although they were managing well in the security policyarea, she believed that could be improved as well. Minister Søreidewas convinced that the EU and NATO remained key platforms forensuring the stability, predictability and prosperity for members aswell as their neighbours. Two organisations were of fundamentalhistorical importance for the whole region, she pointed out. Thisyear, they could look back at the events of thirty years earlier whenFirst Session 19several of their members had re-emerged as fully independent statesand parliamentarians had been very quick to seize the moment, aswere governments. Robust cooperation platforms had been estab-lished, with the primary focus on practical issues of importance tothe region and its citizens.As had been mentioned at the beginning, Norway currently heldthe presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States until July ofthe following year. The Ministerial Meeting that had taken place on1 June 2021, hosted by Lithuania as outgoing presidents of theCBSS, had been important for the Norwegian presidency as wellbecause the meeting had adopted a new political vision for thedevelopment of the Baltic Sea region by 2030. She saw it as a distil-lation of all the good things that they were aiming to achieve in theregion, and moreover, it attached importance to the rule of law,democracy, equality and inclusiveness. In addition, it also valuedthe involvement of civil society and young people. The regionintended to remain at the forefront of efforts to promote sustainabledevelopment, cross-border cooperation and integration. This docu-ment would also guide the work of the Norwegian CBSS presi-dency, and it would be important to ensure the continuity from theprevious presidencies. Their programme, the foreign ministerexplained, targeted innovation and green transformation in indus-try, transport and energy and the circular economy as specialthemes. Norway attached importance to nurturing regional identityand cohesion, and they also put great value in expanding the coop-eration with regional and municipal authorities. Therefore, theyintended to build further on the Council’s very successful mandateon civil protection, children at risk and trafficking in human beings.They had a very strong focus on organised crime and cyber-crime.In her opinion, the strength of the Baltic Sea cooperation lay in itsvery practical approach to issues, to opportunities, to concerns thatwere shared by eleven countries, bound by common internationalcommitments. This was an approach that was important to bemaintained. At the same time, they could not turn a blind eye to thesituation unfolding in their neighbourhood. With regard to Belarus– which also had an observer status in the CBSS –, it was dramaticto see the use of force to suppress the aspirations and wishes of ordi-nary people and to create tension among neighbours as part of theregime’s survival tactics. The only way forward for Belarus wasthrough dialogue and agreement with the opposition, ending theviolence, releasing all political prisoners and returning to compli-ance with binding international commitments. Minister Søreidevery much regretted that Mr Lukashenka was not accepting theassistance that Sweden as chair of the OSCE was offering.20 First SessionConcluding her remarks, the minister provided a few words aboutthe importance of including young people. Young people, ofcourse, held the key to the future of the region, and it was neces-sary to listen to what young people had to say as all of them wereworking to build a resilient Baltic Sea region. Dialogue and contactbetween young people would help to forge a common identity andmutual understanding as well as create networks that would formthe basis for solving common challenges in the future. This parlia-mentary conference had its own youth forum on the preceding Fri-day, focusing on the future of democracy and on climate changeand biodiversity. It was vital to engage young people from all coun-tries in a serious dialogue with political leaders and to listen totheir ideas, their fears, their hopes. It was necessary to encouragetheir participation and be open to their insights. Numerous meet-ings with young people had given Minister Søreide first-hand expe-rience on how inspiring it was to meet them directly, to discusstopics they were concerned about. Many of the attendees mighthave seen that Norway had launched their new white paper fromthe government side on the Arctic in November 2020. The govern-ment had wanted to make sure to include young voices in thispaper. What they had done was establish a youth panel, consistingof fifty young people from all over the region. Their insights andtheir ideas had shaped much of the foundation of the white paper,and the government had followed up on this through budgets andmeetings. What they had seen was that this youth panel had beena little bit of an international export success as there were manycountries and organisations looking at how Norway had done thisand how they in turn could do much of the same. Her point wasthat it was necessary to listen and learn from young people as thepoliticians were working on building a greener, prosperous andmore inclusive Baltic Sea region.Session chairman Johannes Schraps thanked Minister Ine EriksenSøreide very much for her contribution, noting the digital applauseand that she had mentioned a lot of topics that the BSPC was alsotaking into account in this year’s resolution that would be adoptedlater on during the Conference. Mr Schraps noted that he had seena lot of smiles on display when she had mentioned the implementa-tion of a regular youth panel. That was a very important topic thatwas being discussed in the BSPC as well.Mr Schraps added that the organisers were aware that the ministerstill had other commitments on this day and that she would have toleave right after her speech. Therefore, he expressed once again theirFirst Session 21gratitude for her participation as well as for her impressive andenriching words.He moved on to say that the attendees would now listen to a videomessage by the German State Minister for Europe, Mr MichaelRoth. The German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas had been in Tur-key the day before, apparently negotiating with the neighbouringcountries of Afghanistan about migration from this very hard-hitregion at the moment. Therefore, as Mr Maas was not able to attendthe BSPC Conference, Mr Roth as the State Minister for Europe,representing the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the upcom-ing German CBSS presidency from 2022 – 2023, had sent a videomessage that would now be presented.Video Message by Mr Michael Roth,German State Minister for EuropeState Minister Michael Roth addressed the Conference, saying thatthe German side wished to intensify cooperation between the gov-ernments and parliaments and civil society. They wanted tostrengthen democratic organisations and the basic idea behind theCouncil of Baltic Sea States because together with the BSPC, theCBSS was also an important place where they acted as a team. Itwas a strong presence in the region. He considered it such a shamethat they could not meet in person because face-to-face get-togeth-ers, exchanging information and ideas directly, those were truly theMr Michael Roth, German State Minister for Europe22 First Sessionengines driving the building of trust and the cooperation betweenall of their countries. Mr Roth still hoped that, even in a virtual for-mat, they would be able to exchange some good ideas.He mentioned three issues of interest for this day’s conversation.First were their common values, then the protection of the environ-ment and the climate as well as finally youth. Democracy, humanrights and the rule of law were things that had to be commondenominators in the Baltic Sea region. The fact that they could notbe taken for granted was something one saw again and again inEurope as well. For that reason, they had to actively fight for thesevalues together, again and again, without ever letting up the pres-sure. Parliamentary cooperation across boundaries, strengtheningdemocratic understanding in the region, was particularly import-ant.Addressing his second point, Mr Roth said that the environmentand climate protection were global challenges that could hardly begreater than they were at this point. They impacted every one ofthem and could only be solved together. He saw the Baltic Searegion as an incubator for future-oriented technologies and the Bal-tic Sea as an increasing source of green energy, particularly offshorewind energy. To achieve the ambitious EU climate-neutrality goalby 2050, it was necessary to strengthen their cooperation betweentheir nations, in order to harness the full potential of renewableenergies. An issue also affecting Germany concerned the dumpedmunitions in the Baltic Sea. The report by the special Rapporteur,Mr Stein, on this subject showed in no uncertain terms whatimmense pollution and contamination would result in the BalticSea if no action were taken and especially if none were taken quickly.It was in all of their interest to make the Baltic Sea a global pioneerregarding the removal of dumped munitions and unexploded ord-nance on the seabed.Finally, he spoke about the topic of youth. He was very glad to seejust how active young people were under the auspices of the CBSS,not least with the Baltic Sea Youth Platform. All of them were con-tributing a great deal to creating a sense of identity across borders inthe Baltic Sea region. He was very much looking forward to hearingwhat the Baltic Sea Youth Forum would give them in terms of rec-ommendations for a democratic, environmentally sustainable BalticSea region.He thanked the organisers very much for giving them a platform toexchange ideas in this manner. Mr Roth noted that Germany, inJuly 2022, would take on the presidency of the Council of BalticFirst Session 23Sea States. They wanted to continue the long-term goals of theCBSS and ensure that Europe and the Baltic Sea region would buildbridges to tackle the challenges facing them in the world. The BSPCremained a very important partner, and he wished them every suc-cess and good discussions. He thanked them for their attention.Chairman Johannes Schraps highlighted the digital applause for thisvideo message by State Minister Michael Roth. He thanked thespeaker, noting that he would express the attendee’s appreciation tohim at their next meeting.Based on what they had heard from both ministers, Mr Schrapsthought that this confirmed the BSPC were discussing the righttopics, also during their previous working group on Migration andIntegration. They were on the right track discussing the issue of cli-mate change and biodiversity as well in their current working group,an issue that would be revisited later on.Mr Schraps opened the floor for comments or remarks on the con-tributions that they had heard until now. These might also be raisedin the general debate later on, but he invited immediate commentsor remarks. For the time being, no such comments were provided.The chairman said that he considered this first session a great startinto the Conference. He offered his thanks to the speakers for theirvaluable speeches again, promising that their core messages wouldbe taken into account by the BSPC.This had been a short but essential part of their Conference aboutthe cooperation at the governmental level. That was important forthe parliamentarian level as well. He thanked the attendees andhanded over the screen for the second session to Pernilla Stålham-mar from Sweden who would chair the second session.24 Second SessionSECOND SESSIONDemocracy in aChanging Media LandscapeChair: Ms Pernilla Stålhammar, MP, Member of the Swedish delega-tion to the BSPCSession chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar thanked Mr Schraps forhis words. She called for the attendees to move to the second sessionof their Conference, concerning Democracy in a Changing MediaLandscape. For one hour, they would discuss how digitalisation wasaffecting democracy, how to combat disinformation as well as sup-port the importance of free media and freedom of speech. Sheexplained that she was a member of the Swedish delegation to theBSPC. In February, she’d had the opportunity to share a BSPC sem-inar on this particular subject and was very delighted that theycould continue the discussion on this day.Sad to say, they were seeing democratic backsliding globally andalso in their close neighbourhood. It was always necessary to workin the direction of strengthening and safeguarding the respect forhuman rights, democracy and the rule of law. Democracy was notonly free elections but also freedom of expression, a free and inde-pendent media, a vivid civil society and a vivid political opposi-tion. They also needed to strive in the direction of these funda-mental values.Second Session 25She noted that they were living in a digital age where informationand communication technologies were central to their daily lives.There were new ways to communicate with each other, to shareideas and information. Digitalisation made the spread of wordmuch faster than ever before. On the one hand, this developmentmeant new possibilities for political participation and access toinformation. It was easier for people to stay informed and, togetherwith others, create and formulate opinions. On the other hand,there was an increasing risk for disinformation and fake news. That,in turn, had the potential to create polarisation, extremism andundermine democracy.During the BSPC seminar in February, one of their eminent expertshad argued that democratic dialogue was being challenged by disin-formation, online hate and propaganda. He had exemplified this bystating that one out of three politicians in Sweden had been subjectto harassment, threats and violence and had thus avoided speakingout or getting involved in particular issues. Further on, four out often journalists in Sweden had at some point refrained from certaintopics due to the risk of threats. This, Ms Stålhammar said, wasindeed a very bad development.In connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, they had also expe-rienced an infodemic. The UN and the WHO had urged countriesto address this infodemic and promote science-based informationand to combat misinformation. Social media had been used toinform people but, in some cases, had also been used to underminethe global response to the pandemic and the measures taken to stopthe spread of the virus. The flood of information connected withdisinformation and fake news made it very difficult to know whatwas true and what was false. One important response to this was, ofcourse, the free and healthy independent media. These issues wereof cross-border character, and they had to be tackled jointly.Since 1991, the BSPC had been the main platform for cooperationand political dialogue in the Baltic Sea region with a well articulatedaim to support and strengthen democratic institutions. Digitalisa-tion was a process offering both challenges and possibilities fordemocracy, and Ms Stålhammar was looking forward to the deep-ening of the discussion in that day’s panel.She congratulated their first speaker on her new position as presi-dent of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Ms Margareta Ceder-felt had been a member of the Swedish parliament since 1999 andcurrently served in the Committee for Foreign Affairs. She had alsobeen on the Swedish delegation to the OSCE PA since 2010 and26 Second Sessionhad extensive experience in election observation as well as in defin-ing and defending democratic development and democratic values,the rule of law as well as peace and security.Speech by Ms Margareta Cederfelt, President,Organization for Security and Co-operation inEurope Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA)OSCE PA President Margareta Cederfelt began by stating it was apleasure to be invited to this Conference as it was with friends in theNordic, Baltic countries all around the eastern sea. This session’stopic was something that was truly of concern to all of them, notonly as parliamentarians but also as members of society. She wishedto go a bit beyond the Baltic Sea region. Ms Cederfelt believed thatthe tragic events in Kabul, Afghanistan, over recent days and weekstruly put into perspective how media were perceived and consumed.She asked her audience to remember that twenty years earlier, the9/11 terrorist attacks were the first ones to be televised live as theyhad happened. Footage from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq hadmainly come from embedded journalists. Today, though, everyonewith access to a phone and the internet could be a media producer,and footage from terrorist attacks was appearing on their deviceswithin minutes, sometimes seconds. All of them had witnessed howpeople had taken videos, using their cell phones, of tragic accidentsaround the world. While world events had traditionally been cov-ered by established news organisations, independent agencies andMs Margareta Cederfelt, President, Organization for Security andCo-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA)Second Session 27journalists had sprung up to offer new points of view. Extremistmovements, such as the Taliban, had also understood these meansto build up narratives to assert control. Often, these meant thatopposing sides would have their own truths.As had been seen in recent years, the rise of disinformation in westerndemocracy offered major challenges to democratic institutions. Whilethis had occurred in Europe and America, it was a growing trend inEuropean politics. As part of the OSCE work to observe elections, forexample, they had integrated the monitoring of social media for someyears. They had seen that social media had a higher impact on democ-racy which was the reason for them including it. In addition, theOSCE had also monitored traditional media for a very long time. Forexample, they had looked at the time that the different candidates hadaccess to the media but also who owned the media. That was also ofinterest. Another area of concern was who was using the media – wasit the majority, was it the opposition, or was it somebody else? This,Ms Cederfelt emphasised, also had an impact on democracy. Moreand more findings would point out the negative impact of disinforma-tion on electoral campaigns. In her view, politicians had to keep thisin mind, both in how they communicated but also regarding thethreat to democracy. Nevertheless, she did not wish to sound pessimis-tic because those developments also provided possibilities. Debateshad been becoming more and more polarised, and political contes-tants were becoming victims of personal attacks. That had been seenin Sweden but also in other countries as well. In the end, there werefewer opportunities for in-depth analyses and political compromise.However, it was necessary to remember that fake news and propa-ganda had been around for as long as human beings had been onearth. It was just the degree of monitoring that varied. What madeit seem such a new phenomenon was the immediacy provided bythe mobile technology. Ms Cederfelt, just as her listeners, was usingsocial media and considered it a very good way to communicate.Nonetheless, there was also the hate speech and the lack of an audi-tor. She believed it was a fantastic tool that they should be using,also to communicate with their constituency. Moreover, there wasthe possibility of using the internet for conferences, such as thisday’s. She noted that the BSPC had spent a lot of time during theCOVID-19 pandemic on the web. Without the web, it would nothave been possible to have this communication.Easy access to information was a very positive development, and MsCederfelt mentioned the internet had helped the opposition inBelarus to organise and gain strength since the preceding summer.She had noticed it by herself when visiting Belarus. She had last28 Second Sessionbeen there in 2019, and it had been a totally different society fromwhat it had been just two years before that, in 2017. That had beenthanks to the internet and the possibilities it offered. While the easeof access had empowered citizens to move towards online platforms,it had also undermined traditional media as a pillar of the demo-cratic society. She believed the key here was to bridge the gapbetween reliable information and plain propaganda. This called onpoliticians to take steps to better educate the wider public to becomemore media-literate and resilient to disinformation. Within theOSCE Parliamentarian Assembly, her special representative on dis-information and propaganda worked to establish some degree ofregulatory governance. For instance, they wanted to promotehigh-quality political journalism to be strong and independentpublic broadcasters. It was necessary to work together towardsdeveloping better norms and standards applying equally to tradi-tional and digital platforms. It was equally necessary to make surethat throughout the OSCE region, legislation was implemented toguarantee freedom of expression and freedom of the media.During the pandemic but also all over the world, Ms Cederfelt sawthat the freedom of speech was stricken just as well the freedom ofmedia. On all these issues, they continued to work in synergy withthe OSCE representative on freedom of the media, the OSCEchairpersonship and the other OSCE structures to ensure the com-pliance of all participating states with the commitments to respectthe freedom of expression and the free media. The OSCE PA wasalso eager to deepen their partnership with civil society and mediaorganisations and all institutions adhering to these principles. Butas politicians, they also should consider the role they were playing.She knew herself that it was not easy to react to an event with 280characters in a tweet. Perhaps sometimes, it would be beneficial tothink beyond their next tweet to focus on ways to reinforce democ-racy in these troubled times.Ms Cederfelt thanked the BSPC for their attention and was lookingforward to their thoughts on this topic.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar offered her gratitude to Ms Ced-erfelt, noting that the speaker had raised important issues and stepsthat were being taken under the auspices of the OSCE. They couldbuild further on this in the discussion later.She introduced the next speaker, Prof Jeanette Hofmann, who wasa political scientist specialised in internet policy and digital society.Second Session 29She was the founding director of the Alexander von HumboldtInstitute for Internet and Society as well as professor for internetpolicy at the FU Berlin. At the international level, Prof Hofmannhad participated in the UN World Summit on the InformationSociety and the Internet Governance Forum. Her current researchfocused on digitalisation and democracy as well as the emergence ofthe internet policy in Germany.Speech by Prof Dr. Jeanette Hofmann,Director Alexander von Humboldt Institute forInternet and Society, FU BerlinProf Dr Jeanette Hofmann said it was a great honour for her toaddress this important conference and to share her thoughts on dig-italisation and democracy. In the short time allotted to her, shewished to address two points. The first concerned the question ofhow digitalisation and democracy were actually connected. The sec-ond was about current tendencies regarding the regulation of plat-forms.When looking at how the public discourse was talking about digi-talisation and democracy, a recurring pattern could be seen. Usually,digitalisation was regarded as the driver of democratic change. Itwas held responsible for the decline of mass media, for the increaseof disinformation campaigns, for phenomena such as hate speechand populism. It seemed that the internet was being blamed forProf Dr. Jeanette Hofmann, Director Alexander von HumboldtInstitute for Internet and Society, FU Berlin30 Second Sessionanything threatening democracy at the moment. In her view, thisinterpretation was looking in the wrong direction because technol-ogy – particularly digital technology – was not something acting onits own. It had been invented by human beings, and more impor-tantly, it was used by human beings. Prof Hofmann suggested thatthey look at the relationship between digitalisation and democracyin a different way, namely as two entities that were shaping eachother. The way digital technology was used shaped how engineersfurther developed it, and the way it was used created new ways ofinstitutions that then shaped who people were and how they per-ceived the world. It was this interaction between the people usingtechnology and engineers further developing technologies that wasso interesting, in her view, when discussing digital democracy.A closer look at how democracy had developed over the past decadewould show how democracy as a practice introduced certaindemands towards technology. Over the decades, it could be seenthat democracy had been changing quite a bit. Even if their consti-tutions were fairly stable, even if the democratic rule and institu-tions seemed to stay quite the same, as a practice, a lot had beenchanging. Two lines of change could be distinguished. One had todo with aging institutions, the other with expanding institutions.Considering the first, she noted that certain types of political partic-ipation that had used to be at the core of democracy were losing interms of attention and value for the people when they were lookingat democracy. Young people were not becoming members of politi-cal parties anymore, they did not think voting was the most import-ant aspect of democracy. Moreover, US parliamentarians were surelyaware that the relationships between voters and representatives waschanging. That shift was occurring in many ways. For example, thecore electorate of political parties was shrinking. People were mak-ing short-term decisions these days about the political parties theyvoted for. The respect for members of parliament was decreasing aswell. At the same time, trust in parliamentary institutions wasclearly declining in many countries. That did not mean that democ-racy as such was in decline. Prof Hofmann believed that democracywas changing. New institutions were emerging that gave them a lotof hope. For example, lots of people wanted to participate in newways, such as many social movements springing into being. Youngpeople wanted to express their concerns in movements, for instanceFridays for Future. Political participation nowadays was more ori-ented towards specific issues, i.e., people did not commit to long-term engagement, through unions and political parties, for exam-ple. Young people expressed their concerns in non-institutional,more informal ways geared towards what specific issues they caredabout. Climate change was one of these issues, immigration politicsSecond Session 31another of concern to many young people. That was one type ofchange, she noted: political participation outside of political par-ties.Another significant change was the growing importance of the pub-lic sphere and digital media. Even before there had been platformssuch as Facebook and Twitter, it could be seen that the public spherewas changing in many ways. People were expressing their politicalopinions instead of just reading the newspapers. The public sphereover the last decade had become much more interactive, and newways of expressing one’s opinion were emerging. Platforms such asFacebook facilitated people’s urge to comment on political actions,observing what governments were doing and also criticising govern-ments. Voting for or against a government every four or five yearswas not the only way of expressing one’s democratic rights as therewere other ways now. The public sphere was playing a truly import-ant role in this. Democracy, even within the constitution, waschanging in what could be called daily practice. This shift was whatProf Hofmann saw as creating certain impetuses and demands ondigital tools. People used digital tools to express their new way ofparticipating in democracy.Digital democracy in her understanding took part at the intersec-tion of the changing democracy and digital tools allowing individ-uals to enact their rights as citizens out of a desire to participate.While it was true that in most democratic countries, only about tenper cent of the population were very active while others were morepassive observers of what was going on, these ten per cent of activepeople were driving the development of digital networks. They weredriving it by using it for new ways of engaging in democracy. As anexample, Prof Hofmann mentioned a new phenomenon called“platform parties”. Parties were set up in a much speedier way, ofteneven without formal membership, using off-the-shelf platform soft-ware to create new organisations in the hope of interacting morehorizontally and less hierarchically. The speaker was a bit scepticalwhether this would work out in the long run, yet there was an atti-tude towards experimental organisational structures to change poli-tics in the everyday setting. Instead of the hierarchical, large organ-isations, people were giving new ways of interacting a try and alsofinding consensus. Therefore, democratic change was also a driverof technological change as well, the professor emphasised. Peoplewanted to have less hierarchical, less bureaucratic and more sponta-neous ways of working together, and they were using the internetfor that purpose, for example. They desired methods of instantlyexpressing their concerns, their criticism but also what they wishedto see happen. Particularly for the young generation, this was an32 Second Sessionimportant issue. They were impatient and thought that there hadbeen no change. They wanted to see action right at this moment,and the internet was their way of expressing it.Prof Hofmann suggested that they should talk about and see thecurrent situation as a digital constellation where new phenomenasuch as user-generated content served as an alternative to media rep-resentation of politics. It was an alternative in the sense that themedia did not control the public sphere any longer. One could seeboth media reporting but also people commenting and discussingtheir political realities. This situation amounted to a thorough trans-formation of the public sphere. Said transformation called for newrules, she underlined.Starting perhaps in Germany, new laws had been enacted that weregeared towards enforcement of existing laws – such as the NetworkEnforcement Law – but also the Digital Services Act on the Euro-pean level. These shared a few items. They dealt with the takedownof illegal content, which was really important not because there hadbeen no illegal content before but because of the lack of forms ofenforcing existing laws. Both the Network Enforcement Law andthe Digital Services Act set strict deadlines for platforms to removeillegal content, and they imposed heavy fines for platforms whichdid not follow these new laws. What was equally important, theyimposed new rules for platforms and social networks to report whatthey were doing, called transparency reporting. The platforms hadto issue reports about complaints but also about the algorithms theywere using. The ambition of the Digital Services Act was to ask plat-forms to tell the public about the algorithms in use and the princi-ples behind them for filtering content but also for the advertise-ments they showed to their users. There would be new forms ofcomplaint management as well as, in the long run, data sharing. Asan academic, Prof Hofmann considered it very important that theygot access to all the data gathered by platforms about their users andabout societies.So far, so good, she commented. The emphasis of these new lawswas on enforcing existing laws. In her view, they must not forgetthat it was not only about law enforcement, but that user-generatedcontent demanded that one look at the change of human rights, itschanging role. Some of these human rights, she hoped, wouldextend their scope towards digital platforms. Human rights usuallyregulated the relationships between citizens and governments. Theseplatforms, though, had become so powerful and were affecting theexercise of human rights to such a great extent that Prof Hofmannbelieved that in the long run, they would need to ask platforms toSecond Session 33not only respect human rights but also to help people exercisehuman rights. That seemed to her a very important step that all ofthem had to take. Second, forms of institutions for citizens’ right toappeal were needed. When platforms filtered content, citizens hadto be able to appeal when their content had been taken down eventhough users believed they had the right to publish certain things.She explained that algorithms did not understand irony, they didnot understand citation or other forms of rightful ways of express-ing oneself. So there had to be powerful rights to appeal. Further-more, the speaker believed that support for victims of disinforma-tion and hate speech had to be institutionalised. Not enough wasbeing done at the moment to help people who were victims of hatespeech. In the long run, she envisioned the goal as heading towardsa public-private infrastructure for protecting human rights online.People could now speak up, use their human rights in new waysthat also called for new environments to be created that would sup-port the people making use of these human rights.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar thanked Prof Hofmann for thisvery important speech and lecture. Picking up on the preceding, MsStålhammar pointed out that digitalisation was not bad or good initself. What mattered was how it was used, how it was regulated andthat it was accessible to everyone that wished for it.She introduced the third speaker of this session who had been amember of the state duma of the Russian Federation since 2016. Hewas now the first deputy chairman of the Committee for Controland Regulation as well as a member of the Committee of Educa-tion. She yielded the screen to Mr Oleg Nilov.Speech by Mr Oleg Nilov, MP, State Duma,Russian FederationMr Oleg Nilov began by noting that it was a difficult issue they weretalking about: digitalisation and democracy. These were two rathergeneral terms, and that could lead to the opposite result of what thewords actually said. Over the course of the development of digitali-sation, one had to ask the question of the necessity for MPs as rep-resentatives to decide important issues in their countries. If onesaid, “The power belongs to the people”, “The wealth of the countrybelongs to the people”, and if the opportunity was given – as wasthe case, more or less -, citizens were allowed to make decisions and34 Second SessionMr Oleg Nilov, MP, State Duma, Russian Federationalmost make laws on their own, without mediators. Importantitems in the budget could almost be decided by the citizens, if allthese trends developed in line with democracy. Nevertheless, therewas another problem in play here, he cautioned. Mr Nilov believedthey had to look at where this could lead, to discuss the future.Going back to the freedom of the media and the freedom of thepress in the new reality they were living in, he pointed out that thiswas at the same time accompanied by the question of combattingmisinformation, disinformation and fake news. In a sense, that wasan oxymoron. Talking about freedom of the press and freedom ofthe media, that was one subject. Or one could talk about combat-ting the media. It was the same media, essentially. At least, the Rus-sian side took the view that it could only be seen in relative terms.Either it was not the news or not the priorities they wished to see,or it was. It was almost like a Gordian knot. What platforms,according to what rules, what was the meaning of freedom or of thelack of freedom? When would they decide that news were fakenews? It could not just be their perspective or the perception of thecitizens. This was a very tricky point. One could almost say that allof these processes, first of all, were joined together, and then therewas the battle against misinformation, disinformation, lies, fakenews. Mr Nilov considered it a somewhat deplorable state of affairs.It was necessary to have clear standards. He compared the situationto an infection. It was spreading, contaminating and killing many,and that was particularly true in the area of politics and the contextof the media.In that context, Mr Nilov addressed his homeland of Russia. To putit mildly, it seemed to be problem of double standards, and it wasSecond Session 35not confined to Russia. He wished to look at where the issue couldbe found and where examples of such things occurred. In a politicalsphere, obviously, but that sphere also reflected the media land-scape. The problem was like trying to square a circle. People per-ceived things differently in their different countries. A good exam-ple was the Taliban in Afghanistan. The whole world was shaken bywhat had happened there. The results might well be difficult. But atsome point, the Taliban had been created as a virus, created to com-bat the Soviets. They had been an antidote at some point, strength-ened to fight against the Soviets. And they had been created, pursu-ing so-called reasonable ends. That had been their origin, Mr Nilovinsisted, and how they had been strengthened. It was a very sad stateof affairs. It was almost like a virus that had been created in a lab,such as the situation they had in a different field, with the creationof another virus. It was depicted as a nice virus, and this was theUkrainian Taliban. There were very different views – Russia saw itone way, European countries another way. These were the doublestandards that he had been talking about to measure these occur-rences. That meant that social personalities, politicians and themedia were assessing these issues differently – very, very differently.Here, he raised the examples of Edward Snowden and Julian Assangeand how they were seen. American and European colleagues sawthem as traitors and criminals, as spies. Traitors who had betrayedtheir countries, who had spread state secrets to the world. But ifone spoke about Russian fighters against corruption or peoplewho were actually corrupt, like Alexei Navalny, then everybodysaid, “No, they were in prison even though all they did was followtheir conscience”. Again, very different assessments were made,depending on who one spoke to. Mr Nilov believed they wouldnever make any progress if unified standards were not set andimplemented. There were plenty of examples of this, such asKosovo, Crimea or what was happening with the tigers in theRussian province of Yakutia. There were millions of hectares offorest that had burned, and the forest fires were continuing, eventoday. A year earlier, Mr Nilov had asked the BSPC to find formsfor assessing the huge losses for their planet that were taking placeand to the environment. He had called on them to talk aboutwhat policies impacted worse on the environment. As an example,he mentioned policies led by Greta Thunberg in terms of thereduction of carbon emissions, and she had been sorry for thepoor cows, but on the other hand, they were doing nothing againstthe fact that the Russian forests were burning. Nor were there uni-fying international efforts in order to combat this evil. The greenagenda simply didn’t focus on these issues at all, and that was notthe right way to proceed. Mr Nilov believed there were countlessproblems of this kind.36 Second SessionSo, talking about the free media as a reflection of reality, it waseither a mirror reflecting reality as it really was, or it was a distortedmirror distorting reality as well. One could not blame the mirror forwhat it was reflecting. Combatting the mirror was not the way for-ward. What had to be done first and foremost was to talk about howthey could achieve these unified standards and stop having a doublestandard and applying that. He called on his colleagues to thinkabout how long it had taken to stop these double standards in termsof Russian inventions. Here, Mr Nilov spoke about the Paralympicsas an example. The Russian Paralympic athletes had been libelledfor years. First, they had been allowed to compete in the Paralym-pics and then they had been told they were not allowed under aRussian flag in the Paralympics. But these were people with disabil-ities, he pointed out, people who were ill in certain cases. It couldnot be the case that they measured everyone the same way. Thesedouble standards had to be dropped, he underlined, or at least thelimitations of policymaking had to be reflected in the mass media aswell.Mr Nilov concluded his speech at this point by referring to OmarKhayyam who had said, “And how could he have lived, had he notcommitted sin, can you tell?” what means: if anyone had lived with-out a sin, then they had not lived. He further quoted, “If You pun-ish with evil the evil I have done, tell, what is the difference betweenYou and me?” Responding to evil with evil did not make theresponding side any better, Mr Nilov said. He very much appreci-ated that they could speak freely in the BSPC, expressing their ideasfreely. What he would like to see was that they should be less preju-diced and biased in their encounters with one another and be morehonest with one another. Combatting the double standard had tobe something that they should achieve and keep high on theiragenda. He called on the BSPC to fight against Russia- phobia andRussia-bashing and fake news regarding Russia. Russia was an inde-pendent nation.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar thanked Mr Nilov. She notedthat some of these perspectives were seen differently, but it wasalways important to safeguard the freedom of expression. On thatpoint, she introduced the representative from civil society. Since2019, Mr Erik Halkjaer had been president of Reporters WithoutBorders in Sweden. Mr Halkjaer had about twenty years of experi-ence of being a journalist and having worked for various writtenmedia in Sweden.Second Session 37Speech by Mr Erik Halkjaer, President of the SwedishSection of Reporters Without BordersMr Erik Halkjaer thanked the BSPC for the invitation as well as MsCederfelt, Prof Hofmann and Mr Nilov as speakers before him.Their contributions had been interesting, he noted. Mr Halkjaerpointed out that he had addressed this forum in the spring, beforeMr Erik Halkjaer, President of the Swedish Section of ReportersWithout Bordersthe summer, although the audience might have been a little differ-ent. At that point, he had mentioned that press freedom was underpressure all over the world, including Europe and in the Balticstates. They were not free from this attack on press freedom, noteven in this area. A quick look at the report by Reporters WithoutBorders, the Press Freedom Index, showed that – apart from Nor-way and Finland at the top -, Lithuania and Latvia were the onlytwo countries showing something like improvement in terms ofpress freedom over the last few years. All the other countries, includ-ing Sweden, were going up and down the list. It was not lookingthat positive, in his estimation. All of them were facing great chal-lenges in their respective countries.He went on to point out that journalists were being killed, evenwithin the European Union. That was horrendous, he underlined.Nevertheless, he considered the greatest threat they were facing inthe EU and the Baltic states were harassment, threats and hatespeech. These were generated both by state actors as well as privatesector representatives, organised crime or common citizens. Withthe pandemic, there had been a rise of these threats. Journalists cov-ering the pandemic or the regulations and methods used to inform38 Second Sessionor handle the spread of the virus had been suffering more threatsand hate speech, or they might have been oppressed by the state orput in jail or forced to cover something else, such as sports or cul-ture issues. The flow of disinformation had been increasing all overthe world, including the Baltic Sea region. As Ms Cederfelt had saidearlier, this was not a new occurrence. All the factors he had justmentioned were something that had always been there. But whatthe pandemic had brought about was something that the WorldHealth Organization (WHO) called an “infodemic”: a worldwidespread of disinformation along with threats and harassments in thefootsteps of the virus. All of this was much more than there had everbeen before, because of the global digital platforms. He noted thatthis had been pointed out earlier by Prof Hofmann in particular.This development could be called a storm or a hurricane of disinfor-mation, threats, harassments but also surveillance. This did not onlyconcern journalists but most citizens.At Reporters Without Borders, they had long advocated for moretransparency towards these platforms, as Prof Hofmann had askedfor earlier. For long, they had asked for more open algorithms andmore transparency, to see why certain contents were promotedwhile others were blocked or even suppressed. His organisation hadlong advocated for more press freedom on the platforms so thatjournalists and journalistic or media contents were boosted and thatverified journalistic contents would be easily spread and shown onthese platforms instead of contents and information from non-ver-ified sources. More media plurality was needed on the media plat-forms. As a citizen, one could get a variety of information, from alot of different sources. This, Mr Halkjaer underlined, was trulylife-saving during a pandemic. That was necessary. As a citizen, oneneeded to be able to make their own decisions, to make up theirown mind, with information from a variety of sources, with differ-ent angles and views. That was vital in stopping a pandemic. Dur-ing the pandemic, the platforms had indeed been blocking and insome cases taking down misinformation – what was called “fakenews”. The question, though, was what constituted fake news andwho decided what fake news was.Mr Halkjaer said that the methods employed by the platforms wereokay but not unproblematic. At Reporters Without Borders, theywould rather talk about carrots than sticks. Instead of blocking anderasing content, they would prefer if the platforms and digital out-lets were spreading more information from verified journalisticsources to boost these sources. His organisation had even created atool for this: the Journalism Trust Initiative which had beenlaunched in the spring of 2021. That was a method for media out-Second Session 39lets to certify journalism and show their audience how these worked,providing more transparency. Moreover, while they were asking thedigital media platforms to be more transparent, they equally askedthe journalistic content – the traditional media outlets – to be moretransparent as to how they implemented their journalism. This con-cerned questions such as which sources they were using, how thesources had been acquired, how were the contents verified, who waspaying for the contents and who were the owners of the outlets.With this certificate from the Journalism Trust Initiative, ReportersWithout Borders was hoping that this could be used by the digitalmedia platforms and by users to know that this was a trusted mediaoutlets in contrast to another not verified source. Disinformationand fake news were best fought through journalism with verifiedsources, it was best fought with investment in journalism.His organisation had also worked with an initiative called Informa-tion and Democracy. There, a large group of countries had been puttogether. Mr Halkjaer mentioned that all countries were of coursewelcome. They had created a forum for information and democ-racy. The idea behind it was to work together to find a way to makethe internet more democratic – to make the digital platforms moredemocratic. As Jeanette Hofmann had said in her contribution, thegoal was to make it easier to enforce and appeal to the platforms asa citizen.Unfortunately, in a forum of parliamentarians from all countriesaround the Baltic Sea, Mr Halkjaer had to say that there were coun-tries in this region who were not using what he had just described.Those nations were using another method, i.e., blocking, suppress-ing and making it harder for journalists to work. For example, therewas Russia which had implemented a whole set of laws according towhich journalists had to register as foreign agents or where the tele-phones one bought featured pre-installed software. It was illegal tospread false information – as had been discussed here. But the ques-tion was how to decide what such false information was. Russia wasblocking sites, and platforms needed to block illegal content. Thiswas interesting, Mr Halkjaer noted, because Prof Hofmann hadalso mentioned this as a German law. In his view, this was a verysensitive issue because the question remained of who decided whatwas illegal and what had to be blocked. He said that this deci-sion-making process had to follow the human rights and alreadyexisting laws. All of these methods, though, were highly sensitive,and he would be careful about using them. Instead, he preferredusing the carrot, to work for more media plurality and create a statewhere there were more journalists who could work, where it waseasier to verify who was a journalist. After all, there were tools to do40 Second Sessionso, such as the Journalism Trust Initiative. It should also be revealedwhat methods these journalists were using. All of that should beshown openly, instead of blocking and making it harder for differ-ent actors. In the end, one had to ask themselves who was decidingwhat was fake news, false information etc.He went on to talk about the situation in Belarus which was deteri-orating quickly and how Belarus was using disinformation in aninformation war against Lithuania. That affected the EuropeanUnion and its citizens. Once again, Mr Halkjaer was getting callsfrom journalists, asking him how one could determine if somethingwas verified content, dealing with information received from theborder between Lithuania and Belarus. He could only answer thathe didn’t know but that the journalists had to check the sources.That was essential and a journalist’s job. Where did the video comefrom? Who was behind it? Could the journalist verify the informa-tion from another source? These and more tasks along this line werecrucial for journalists and had to be done.He went on to describe the situation south of the Baltic, specificallyin Poland where laws and media takeovers were used to diminishmedia plurality. Once again, he emphasised that this was not theway to create a democratic society. The recipe for fighting disinfor-mation was with media plurality, journalism, transparency andpress freedom. That was how one built a long-lasting, sustainabledemocracy, he concluded.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar offered many thanks to Mr Halk-jaer for these very important words and also for the important workthat Reporters Without Borders were doing all over the world infollowing the situation for reporters that had been silenced, har-assed and even killed. The situation was truly tense for many jour-nalists around the globe, Ms Stålhammar pointed out, and it wasimportant that this concern was raised. The possibilities to workthrough media plurality and press freedom were decisive.Second Session 41Panel DiscussionChairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar explained that they had listenedto all their panellists, noting that different views had come up dur-ing the discussions. In that respect, she asked if Ms Cederfelt wouldlike to react because she had been the first speaker.Ms Margareta Cederfelt alsothanked all her fellow panellists. Ithad been very interesting to listento them and receive all their differ-ent remarks. She noted it was verypositive to hear that everyone wassupporting freedom of expressionand the freedom of media. But asalways, she cautioned it’s all in the details. First of all, she pointed outthat the OSCE was defending freedom of expression and the freedomof media. It was not optional. In the OSCE, all participating stateshad committed to this, and it was their role to make sure that govern-ments lived up to that pledge. It was also necessary to give the mediathe tools to be independent and free. Protection had to be given toensure that journalists and their sources were not harassed. Neverthe-less, she also had to admit that that was far from the case in severalcountries. Research and science were very important aspects, as ProfJeanette Hofmann had presented. Ms Cederfelt believed that the pro-fessor’s results needed to be included in a political dialogue because ofthe recently implemented laws and agreements. Referring to MrHalkjaer’s comments, she underlined the importance to act and pro-mote content rather than enact new blocks to freedom. RegardingMr Oleg Nilov, Ms Cederfelt had considered it very interesting to lis-ten to him. She was first very happy to hear about the freedoms thathad to be protected but was also very sad concerning the fires in Sibe-ria and how they were affecting the people there and the whole world.Nevertheless, she thought that there was in fact a debate on how todefeat the fires. That was what the UN Sustainable Goals were about.Moreover, that was what they were debating all over the world, notonly the fires in Siberia but also fires in the US and the Mediterraneanarea. All of this showed the importance of global cooperation. MsCederfelt was looking forward to cooperation inside the OSCE Par-liamentarian Assembly with Russia on this important issue, on cli-mate change, because they all needed to cooperate. Moving on to theissue of media, Ms Cederfelt referred to Mr Nilov’s quote of OmarKhayyam and said that she was not responding to evil with evil.Regarding Ukraine, she had to speak up because she had been veryengaged in that country for many years. She could have said that42 Second Sessionthis issue showed the difficulty with truth but rather the truthcould be used in a way that Ms Cederfelt did not see as proper. Inthe OSCE PA, the discussion was framed as the crisis in and aroundUkraine. It was very difficult for her to use such terminology pre-ferred to call it Russian aggression because that was a war that hadgone on for seven years. Crimea, much like Ukraine, was an areawith internationally agreed borders. Ms Cederfelt repeated the lastpart. Nonetheless, Russia was denying these borders. She had heardRussian parliamentarians saying that Crimea had finally comehome. The speaker did not agree with this picture because therewere international agreements about the borders. Again, thisshould actually be what is the truth. Otherwise, why should therebe negotiations? Why should there be political agreements if theycould simply be broken because one party wanted to change them?This highlighted that difficulties would remain even after agree-ments on reporting had been enacted. Ms Cederfelt furtherrefrained from saying anything about Mr Navalny or Mr BorisNemtzov, although she referred to a report by a special Rapporteurof the OSCE on the assassination of Mr Nemtzov that could befound on the OSCE homepage. She recommended it for readingbecause it also showed the narrative of what might be the truth andwhat might not be the truth. She believed that freedom of expres-sion was very important, adding that, as a politician, she did notlike being criticised, either. Nonetheless, it was important in ademocracy that there was the possibility for people, for organisa-tions, for media, for journalists to be critical and to do so withoutany fear of having to go to jail or being assassinated. Ms Cederfelthoped that Russia would continue to cooperate on these issuesbecause she was certain that the Baltic Sea region – as well as theOSCE region – would benefit from this: the freedom to be criticalof those who had the power to make decisions.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålham-mar underscored the impor-tance of Ms Cederfelt’s remarksabout Ukraine and the annexa-tion of Crimea as well as MessrsNavalny and Nemtzov whichshe agreed with. She asked ifsomeone else among the panel-lists wished to react. As there was no immediate response, sheturned to Prof Hofmann as she was doing a lot of research onimplementation and how digitalisation should be handled. MsStålhammar asked what parliamentarians could do regardingthese subjects and what the most important things were that theyshould pursue.Second Session 43Prof Jeanette Hofmann thankedthe chairwoman for this veryimportant question. One thingshe had noticed during this dis-cussion as well but also earlierwhen listening to politicians atthe national level was that thefocus was very much on mediaand how to ensure plurality ofmedia. While that was of course important, she said that her feelingwas that it had to be taken into account that there was a new typeof content. That was the expression of individuals who were usingthe digital sphere as their new medium to take their rights andexpress themselves. This was such an important area, she under-lined, and it would not go away anymore. When she looked at theGerman but also the European legislation, there was not enough ofa focus yet on how to deal with user-generated content. First of all,the term was poorly chosen. Content sounded like a product whilein fact, it was more the result of the freedom of expression. A differ-ent term was needed to describe that, thanks to the internet, every-body could now speak to the world or entertain the world and hadan individual loudspeaker. There were a lot of good aspects aboutthis. It could strengthen democracy. But they had seen and heard aspart of this Conference that it was also misused to a great deal forhate speech, disinformation and similar things. The big task aheadwas to balance the protection of human rights, of freedom of speechand the enforcement of law against disinformation and hate speech.What Prof Hofmann found very important was that none of themwere in a position to distinguish between truth and lies. They shouldnot enable and empower any government to make this distinction.Processes were needed as was the rule of law to deal with this reallydelicate problem, namely that nobody owned the truth or had theauthority to determine what was true and what was a lie. These werenew topics. The content created by users posed a new regulatoryissue, and it was necessary to spend a lot of time understanding thisissue to regulate it in a proper way, without harming freedom ofspeech and other human rights.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar thanked the speaker for her veryimportant words. She yielded the screen to Mr Nilov.Mr Oleg Nilov wished to respond to the comments by Mr Halkjaer.He agreed with the journalist’s opinion that bad examples were con-tagious. However, this bad example – the legislation on the foreignagenda and the media – was hardly something invented by Russia.He suggested that Mr Halkjaer look at how other western countries44 Second Sessionwere dealing with this issue. MrNilov asked where such laws werefirst used, where they had beeninvented and where they hadbeen first actively applied to Rus-sian media. He noted that MrHalkjaer was outraged that Rus-sia was responding the way it wasand that he felt the Russian response was not appropriate. Mr Nilovwished to look a bit deeper at the underlying causes. If one spoke ofUkraine or Crimea, he wondered who had created the precedentcase in Kosovo and what international basis was used there. Therewere mafia-like structures that had committed terrible crimes,including trading with organs, and there had been plenty of pressreports on this, and the European prosecutors always complainedabout this, but the European politicians had been silent on thismatter. Therefore, he considered this issue an example of the doublestandard that he’d been referring to. It was necessary to combat theunderlying causes rather than the symptoms. He said he would cer-tainly agree that things like this shouldn’t happen in Ukraine, andthey shouldn’t happen in Russia, but they shouldn’t happen in othercountries either. The reasons, though, were to be found elsewhere.Mr Erik Halkjaer conceded theMr Nilov was absolutely right.This was not a Russian invention.What he had been pointing outwere the Baltic states and whatwas happening there right now.In that condensed view, a lot ofelements had been left out. Headded a comment that he agreed completely with Mr Nilov thatJulian Assange and Edward Snowden were victims of a global waron who had a right on information as well. They were whistle-blow-ers and should be protected as such. Very briefly, he wished to agreethis was something that could be fought in all countries all over theworld.Chairwoman Pernilla Stålhammar offered her gratitude to thespeaker and announced that the session had come to an end. Shewas glad that they now had some written words on this matter forthe end of the Conference when the BSPC would be adopting theirresolution. She handed over the screen to the next speaker.General Debate 45GENERAL DEBATERe-starting after theCOVID-19 pandemicChair: Mr Arvils Ašeradens, MP, LatviaIntroduction – conclusions from the regionSession chairman Arvils Ašeradens, MP of Latvia, welcomed every-one to the general debate of the 30th BSPC. This session representeda forum that had been introduced in 2018. Three years ago, inÅland, the BSPC had tried out the new format, a general debatewithout restricting the content to allow everyone to contributewhat was particularly close to their heart. The format had been fur-ther refined during the BSPC’s Conference in Oslo in 2019. Theresponse to this initiative had been excellent. Therefore, it had beendecided to continue at this Conference as well. The format hadopened up opportunities to encourage the attendees to contributeand share their perspective on issues that were particularly signifi-cant from their point of view and that of their delegation. This for-mat, Mr Ašeradens continued, allowed them to better understandthe spectrum of opinions and priorities within the Baltic Sea regionat the parliamentary level. For this session, he encouraged theattendees from the outset to make use of this opportunity.This year, there was a particularly wide range of topics to be dis-cussed. Of course, that included the one affecting all of them in46 General Debatetheir parliaments, namely the pandemic, so that one question of thediscussion was how the pandemic had affected the parliaments andthe ways they worked. Other questions suggested by Mr Ašeradensconcerned how to deal with economic consequences and the result-ing burdens on public budgets, how to start over after the pan-demic, which lessons had been learned, which answers could begiven to current political developments as a whole, which problemswould be raised as a consequence, whether there already wereanswers to these problems, and if so, which those would be. Henoted that they had already heard about the foreign ministers of theBaltic Sea states having adopted the Vilnius II Declaration, anupdate for the Vision of the Baltic Sea Region Until 2030, on June1, in the framework of the CBSS Ministerial Meeting.In that respect, he introduced the keynote speaker, Mr ArnoldasPranckevičius, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic ofLithuania.As chairperson of this session, he used the opportunity to talk aboutthe situation in the Baltic states, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. Hestarted by noting that the second wave of COVID-19 had not leftthe Baltic states untouched. As a matter of fact, it had hit the coun-tries quite hard and forced them into the second quarantine at theend of 2020. That time had been difficult for all the Baltic states asthe economies had had to cope with significant lockdown measures.The economic sectors hardest hit across the Baltic states were simi-lar, including transportation, entertainment and recreation as wellas accommodation and all kinds of catering services.Job retention schemes had been applied in all three states in orderto prevent high increases in the unemployment rate, the chairmanexplained. These support measures could be considered effective, asthe unemployment levels had remained moderate in comparisonwith other EU states. Important strategic decisions with long-termeffects had targeted the transportation sector as well. For example,significant state aid had been provided to Latvian AirBaltic – pro-viding flights in Europe – or Tallink – providing passenger ship ser-vices within Scandinavia. The current crisis and the means to man-age it were significantly different from the previous financial crisissince generous support budgets were promised by the EuropeanRecovery and Resilience Facility.Mr Ašeradens pointed out that all three countries had adopted andimplemented strategies for overcoming the crisis and exiting the stateof emergency: The Lithuanian government had adopted the Eco-nomic and Financial Action Plan in mid-March. It had five focusGeneral Debate 47areas, such as providing the necessary resources for the efficient oper-ation of health and social security systems, preserving jobs andincome, maintaining business liquidity and boosting the economy.Next to the Action Plan, the government of Lithuania had approvedan economic stimulus package called “Future Economy DNA” inJune 2020 aimed at promoting conditions for a qualitative transfor-mation of the Lithuanian economy, sustainable development and thedevelopment of innovative, high value-added business.In its strategy adopted in May 2020, Latvia’s government had iden-tified three steps in overcoming the crisis: 1. Survival (aimed at lim-iting the spread of the virus and improving financial stability duringlockdown); 2. The reorientation phase (defined as the post-crisisstrategy, including immediate measures for activating the businesscontinuity and structural adjustment); 3. The growth phase (tar-geted at securing higher growth in the future by implementing a setof medium-term support measures for economic transformationbased on stimulus for export and productivity, automation and dig-ital transformation as well as the green course).The Estonian Strategy for Exiting the Situation Caused by theSpread of COVID-19 was tilted more towards solving the publichealth problems and mitigating the societal effects of the emergencysituation. The first stage mentioned in the Strategy addressed theescalation of the infection outbreak, the second concerned stabilisa-tion while the third stage brought the return to everyday life, alsoincluding the readiness for another possible disease outbreak. Theimposed restrictions had been set in chronological and priorityorder, and their effect on the spread of the infection had beenassessed.Despite the near-term setback from the coronavirus resurgence andthe slow start to vaccinations, Mr Ašeradens noted that the news onthe accelerating supply of vaccines and increasing vaccinations ofthe most vulnerable population reinforced confidence in a gradualresolution of the health crisis throughout 2021 and in early 2022.The challenge of the coronavirus pandemic had added urgency toaddress long-standing endeavours to better use research and innova-tion to tackle health emergencies, climate change and digital trans-formation all at the same time. The Baltic countries had started todevise investment plans for a transition into greener, more circularand digital economies, which were required to reach the ambitious2050 climate-neutral goals.The chairman notified the attendees that the Lithuanian Vice-Min-ister had now joined the Conference and would present his speech.48 General DebateKeynote Speech by Mr Arnoldas Pranckevičius,Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republicof LithuaniaVice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Arnoldas Pranckevičius was gratefulfor the invitation from parliamentarians from across the Baltic Searegion. Being able to meet online had been one of the first lessons ofCOVID-19. He pointed out that it was important and interesting todiscuss how in particular the Baltic Sea parliamentary dimensioncould contribute to the endeavours to combat the pandemic. It washis pleasure to address the Conference on behalf of the former Lithu-anian presidency of the CBSS, noting that the term had ended in July.During this period, Lithuania had actively sought ways of turningchallenges of the current period and difficult times into future oppor-tunities. In Mr Pranckevičius’s mind, there were four lessons for theCOVID-19 aftermath: First of all – and very important for the region– was that the climate crisis had not disappeared but had in factbecome even more important. Despite their economies and havinglimited travel and trade during this period across the world, the recentreport by the IPCC had shown that the global community was waybehind the set goals, and therefore it was important to tackle thismatter with political will and with joint endeavours, not only inEurope but with their global partners. Therefore, this ambition ofEurope to become a climate-neutral continent in 2050 was extremelyimportant as well as implementing a transformation of the economicmodel in a global way, to see that as a new source of economic growthand to make sure that important technological change as well as newinventions reached all involved sectors. That would be transport, agri-culture, energy or the environment.Mr Arnoldas Pranckevičius, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of theRepublic of LithuaniaGeneral Debate 49The second lesson to be learned was the difficulty of transforma-tion. They had not only seen the rise of digital communicationand digital ways of doing business, learning online or workingat a distance, but also the phenomenon of the world being moreconnected than ever before in its history but at the same time,citizens and communities were living more and more in digitaltribes, in digital spheres that did not speak with each other, thatdid not understand each other and increasingly felt animositytowards each other. This happened on different issues, whethervaccination or any other aspect of the current reality. This, in hismind, gave them as diplomats and politicians an obligation tolook for ways of using the digital tools not to distance peoplefrom themselves but to empower them and to build bridgesbetween different communities that did not necessarily sharethe same ideas or sometimes were prone to disinformation orfake news. The digital transformation had to be accompanied byvery strong cybersecurity, the fight against disinformation, datasecurity and privacy, the ethics of artificial intelligence. At thesame time, far more investments and emphasis on new technol-ogies and big data, on the Digital Services and Markets Act –which was currently on the table for the European Union – werenecessary.The third lesson concerned migration. It was true that during thepast year and a half, they had seen people travelling less. As a matterof fact, borders had been reinstated temporarily in order to stop thespread of the virus. Nevertheless, they should not be fooled that thiscentury in many ways would be defined by the way politics man-aged to control the migratory flows. Not only were they happeningbecause of such tragic events as were currently unfolding in Afghan-istan but also due to climate change, due to the different authoritar-ian regimes, human rights violations across different world regions.Europeans would have to tackle this issue upfront, including a new– and at the same time old – threat of instrumentalising migrantsfor political reasons. An example of that had been seen in the pre-ceding few weeks in Latvia, Poland and Lithuania from the Belaru-sian regime, using migrants as an instrument to advance their polit-ical agenda. That was unacceptable and should face consequences.At the same time, Europeans should work much harder on a com-mon solution for this common problem and finally agree on a com-mon migration and asylum policy. This should not only put empha-sis on the security of external borders but also on clear asylum rulesand rules on secondary migration. At the same time, viable and sus-tainable agreements with third countries, countries of origin andtransit were very important in order for Europeans to be preparedto tackle migration in this 21st century.50 General DebateThe fourth and final phenomenon resulting from the COVID-19pandemic that Vice-Minister Pranckevičius wanted to draw atten-tion to was democracy. In the past decade or so, there had been anunfortunate retreat of democracy in various parts of the world.There had been attacks on human rights and freedom of speech andcivil liberties in different parts of the globe, including Europe.Therefore, it was of utmost importance today to speak more, notless about democracy, human rights, the rule of law and the impor-tance of equality and non-discrimination. This was exactly what thepresidencies of the CBSS were trying to accomplish, also by work-ing on a common resolution which had been adopted by theirstates. The concluding document of the Lithuanian presidency, theVilnius II Declaration, a Vision for the Baltic Sea by 2030, hadbeen adopted by the foreign ministers on 1 June. It spoke preciselyabout climate issues, the importance of the restoration of the eco-logical health of the Baltic Sea, about the importance of the greenand blue economies – the potential of which still would have to beused fully, thanks to innovations –, about renewable energy and thegreen transition which were incredibly important for all of theirnations and was also a part of the European recovery strategy, aboutfighting new forms of cross-border organised crime, about buildingup resilience across all parts of the society as well as regional coop-eration and civil protection, the importance of cooperation in sci-ence and research as well as education, culture and tourism. Lastbut not least, the Declaration concerned upholding the rule of law,democracy and the respect for human rights and fundamental free-doms.Mr Pranckevičius ended his intervention with a quote from AndreiSakharov, whose 100-year anniversary had been recently marked.That quote had also been brought forth by Gabrielius Landsbergis,Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, addressing the MinisterialMeeting of the Lithuanian presidency of the CBSS. The quote was,“Peace, progress, human rights, these three goals are insolublylinked to one another. It is impossible to achieve one of these goalsif the other two are ignored.” Vice-Minister Pranckevičius believedthis was a wise and very important statement that transcended time.They could not achieve peace, they could not achieve progress, norcould they achieve strong and sustainable economic growth andecological well-being of the Baltic Sea region if they did not alsotake very strong care of human rights. He reminded his listeners ofthe fact that all of the citizens of the region could live in a societywhere they themselves and nobody else could decide about thefuture. He wished the Conference good luck and concluded hisspeech.General Debate 51Session chairman Arvils Ašeradens thanked the Vice-Minister forhis input into the general debate. He opened the floor for questionsto Mr Pranckevičius. As there were none, he moved on to the debateproper.Mr Wille Valve, MP from Åland,began by noting that this was animportant day for all of them.Their organisation was turning30 years old. The BSPC hadwithstood the tests of economiccrises, pandemics and interna-tional tensions, just to name afew things. The organisation had propelled the development of theBaltic Sea Strategy and even evolved into a kind of role model forother regional modes of cooperation. In his speech, he wished toemphasise the environmental status of their common sea. As anÅlander, one constantly lived in the middle of the Baltic Sea andsaw its changing face. That was not always a beautiful sight: He pre-sented a picture taken from a boat, showing a slimy, yellow layer ontop of the waves. Mr Valve said that every summer, the sea turnedinto a poisonous porridge for a couple of weeks. One could notswim, and it was important to protect animals and small childrenfrom drinking the water. The reason was quite simple: inputs ofphosphorus and nitrates into the Baltic Sea. Phosphorus and nitratescame from toilet waste, ships, private drainage, agriculture andaquaculture.However, there was good news: They could do something aboutthat. And they had. When the use of phosphates had been bannedin laundry detergents, it had been possible to see a small improve-ment in the status of the Baltic Sea. The building of water canals inSt Petersburg had reduced the nitrogen influx by 1.5 times andphosphorus by 5.4 times, according to official statistics. On 7 June2017, Kaliningrad in Russia had inaugurated its wastewater treat-ment plan – a very good use for the Baltic Sea, Mr Valve com-mented. Last but not least, the Baltic Sea was now the first sea in theworld to ban cruise ship wastewater dumping. This ban would takefull effect in the present year of 2021. The speaker wished to be clearthat there were a lot of things left to improve, including where helived, on the Åland islands. An unacceptable number of householdswere still not connected to a sewer system, in particular cottages.For aquaculture, a legal phosphorus cap had been set but it was pos-sible to do better in terms of encouraging creativity to furtherreduce the outlet of nutrients. Every action counted, he underlined,no matter how small. Mr Valve emphasised that their sea was still52 General Debatenot healthy. It was important for the BSPC to continue this successstory of international cooperation. It was particularly importantthat their resolution stressed the need of increased joint structuralefforts to reduce nutrient influx into the sea. They did have thepotential, though, of becoming a success story for other areas in theworld, facing similar challenges, as well. He called on his colleaguesto continue their work with increased ambition. That was what theyowed to their children.Session chairman Arvils Ašeradens commented that this was anissue very close to his heart. He thought that the health of the Bal-tic Sea was critical and was sure that Mr Valve’s remarks would beconsidered in their upcoming work.Mr Johannes Schraps, BSPCVice-President, MP of the Ger-man Bundestag, opened byunderlining what Mr Valve fromthe Åland islands had just said.This made clear how importantthe work of the BSPC was andalso how important it was forparliamentarians to put pressure on their governments to act inthese areas and topics. Moving on to his contribution, he said thatcooperation in the Baltic Sea region had a long history and hadgone on for a very long time before Mr Schraps himself, as a veryrecent member of the BSPC, had become involved and been able tocontribute to the history of the BSPC. It wasn’t quite up to that ofthe Hanseatic League, but the BSPC certainly had a sound historyso that they could celebrate 30 years of their collaboration together.This was why he was looking forward to the ceremonial session lateron at the Conference, commemorating the 30-year anniversary ofthe BSPC, with those parliamentarians who had been workingtowards parliamentary cooperation and had indeed defined it overthe last 30 years. For younger participants like himself, these wereindeed role models and also people who provided an incentive tocontinue the good work of the BSPC in the future. This anniversaryof 30 years of the BSPC occurred at a time of immense challenge.In order to retain peace in the Baltic Sea region and in order to over-come the crises facing them, multilateral cooperation in the regionwas crucial. The BSPC was a place where they supported demo-cratic cooperation and strengthened dialogue, not just among par-liamentarians but also among the regions, the state assemblies andtheir societies. As members of national and regional parliaments inGeneral Debate 53many areas, with the representatives of the Council of the Baltic SeaStates, they were working towards the same ends. The Baltic Searegion could be seen as one that had a strong parliamentarian pres-ence, and they could send out clear signals, even though it wassometimes hard to assert them in their home parliaments. In the 30years since being founded, the BSPC had expanded its mandate:Areas that the working groups had dealt with in the past hadincluded sustainable tourism but also migratory flows, and the cur-rent working group was looking at the question of climate changeand biodiversity. In light of these issues, he considered the BSPC asgoing far beyond the Baltic Sea region in terms of the reach of theseconcerns.Over the course of their general debate, it had become clear howimportant the question of restarting their economy after the pan-demic was. Mr Schraps noted that this was the title of the presentsession as well. That also showed the reach of these issues. Othermatters were as important to them, such as progress in digitalisationin the whole region. The last year and a half had also shown them inno uncertain terms that in a crisis situation like this, it was necessaryto pull together. That applied to tackling climate change as well.They had seen how quickly they had been able to respond to thepandemic, and it was crucial to respond the same way to climatechange. The European Green Deal was one example. Mr Schrapsthought that the Baltic Sea Youth Forum on Saturday had provedthat they had to shift into a more climate-friendly society, and thishad to be implemented. The time had come to act. This was some-thing that the parliamentarians had to make clear to their own gov-ernments, to step up the pressure to act on this. Beyond climatechange, there were so many other issues to take on, such as the con-flicts among some of the states bordering on the Baltic Sea. Thesewere either discussed formally at BSPC meetings or sometimes inthe margins. He mentioned the conflicts in Ukraine and Belarusthat had already been touched upon during the conference. Yet, onthose issues, Mr Schraps conceded that they would never all sharethe same opinion. That was part of reality. What mattered, though,was having a forum to exchange their views. He emphasised the lat-ter part. This was why their cooperation was not just important interms of the concerns officially on the agenda but also to use theframework of their discussions to talk about some more difficultissues that could not always be put on the agenda per se. This wasanother reason why they were very much looking forward to beingable to meet in person again. That gave them an opportunity to dis-cuss these things in a more informal way, particularly the more dif-ficult issues that were harder to discuss digitally. On this note, MrSchraps said that he was pleased that the BSPC had at least man-54 General Debateaged to meet at this Conference in a digital format and succeeded incovering a wide area of ground and sending some clear signals. Hethanked President Niemi, the Swedish delegation and the SwedishRiksdag for the wonderful implementation of the agenda, takingover from their Lithuanian colleagues in the preceding year. MrSchraps believed that the issues on the agenda were such that theytouched all of them. Despite not being able to meet in person, thediscussion had contributed to them working together within theBSPC on the basis of friendship and cooperation. It had also allowedthem to set positive accents for all the people in their region. As thedelegation of the German Bundestag, Mr Schraps added that theywere looking forward to close cooperation with the Swedish presi-dency in the months to come and that they were very much antici-pating continuing the work on the issues as the German presidencyfrom June of the following year.Mr Arvils Ašeradens thanked Mr Schraps for his contribution.Mr Sergey Perminov, Member ofthe Council of the Russian Feder-ation, congratulated everyone on30 years of the BSPC. He furtherwished all of them successful workand mutual understanding in thefuture. The agenda they were dis-cussing at the Conferenceincluded issues that the Russian Federation Council was also discuss-ing as well as challenges facing the Russian Federation in general, inthe context of combating and containing the pandemic. There hadn’tbeen a sense of tension or a lack of understanding, even on the digitalplatform they were using. He believed it was very helpful they couldat least meet in digital form. They would be able to support their col-leagues, should it be necessary to discuss these things.Obviously, the environmental state of the Baltic Sea was at the topof their agenda, and the government of the Russian Federation wasvery concerned with this issue. He noted that Russia had approveda decision to provide comprehensive financing in order to ensurethe safety of the Baltic Sea and to reduce the nutrient uptake as wellas to implement things that had been agreed upon in the bilateralframework. The bilateral discussions and negotiations had led toagreements that would be put into practice in the years ahead. TheGeneral Debate 55worrying questions that had been raised on this day would remainon the agenda. Mr Perminov wished to say something regarding themodern world and the digital technologies. In his view, they natu-rally involved challenges as they had all heard a number of timesalready during the Conference. The problem between homo sapiensand machine algorithms that were installed by the global playersrequired common standards and rules of play. It was necessary toexchange arguments and counterarguments on these importantmatters. Mr Perminov believed that this was truly an acute issuebecause democracy – which had existed for hundreds of years now,in particular modern democracies that had been in place for abouta century or so – had to deal with complex issues that were now onthe political agenda in a way they never had been before. So, regard-ing the BSPC resolution, this was important. Just as important wasfinding common rules that everyone adhered to. This would becomeeven more crucial moving forward than what one could see at themoment. Naturally, the Baltic Sea was something they all had incommon as Baltic Sea states, and the future of their region wasimportant. Thankfully, they had common scientific projects thatthey were working on. There were plenty of bilateral and multilat-eral projects going on at this time. Mr Perminov was looking opti-mistically towards the future, even though the context in which thediscussions were currently being held was sometimes worrying. TheRussian side would like to appeal to all participants of this Confer-ence to look at the future facing them through a positive prism. Theproblems before them were not just facing the Russian Federationor the Baltic Sea states but everyone on the planet. He wished all ofthem health and success in their labours, working on the manyissues that were in play. Mr Perminov noted that they had donesome very effective work together.Session chairman Arvils Ašeradens agreed that exchanging best prac-tices and open dialogue was important.Mr Jonas Faergeman, represen-tative of the Baltic Sea YouthForum from Denmark, said thattheir gathering on Saturday hadbrought a lot of young peopletogether. He wished to extendsome of the conclusions theyhad made on that day, regardingsome of the things that had been discussed so far, especially in thetheme of the current session as to what could be done after the56 General DebateCOVID-19 pandemic and how those experiences could be usedto further the agenda in the Baltic Sea region. To him, the mostimportant topic for most young people in the region was the cli-mate – by quite a margin the most important issue. They hadseen the incredible ability to do a lot of very, very important stuffin each country and on a regional scale as well regarding theCOVID-19 crisis. Every country had done what they thoughtwas the best to limit the negative effects of the crisis. That hadgone surpassingly well, in a short amount of time. The youngpeople hoped that this ability could be extended to other topics,mainly the climate crisis. For many years – indeed for six or sevendecades –, though, there had been a severe lack of ability andwillingness to act on the climate crisis. The youths were hopingthat now that they had seen politicians act extremely fast in anextremely short amount of time – which had been a great experi-ence as that normally only happened in wartime. Finally, suchspeediness had happened for something that was not a war. Youngpeople would love to see that extended to important topics onwhich they had been promised that something would happen foryears now, for decades. Mr Faergeman noted that earlier on thisday, it had been mentioned that the IPCC report had been awake-up call. He was sad to hear that this was considered awake-up call, considering that the report supported the samethings that young people had heard for about seven decades sincethe first report of the UN. Moreover, there had been a significantreport by the UN in 2014. Time and time again, there had beennew reports, new promises and new ambitions being set annually.The new famous deadline was 2030 for most countries. Therecent IPCC report had now moved the 2040 consequences downto 2031. As a matter of fact, there was now the sad position thatthey had lost ten years of their time for planning. That meant,currently, when subtracting ten years from 2031, one reached thepresent year. The youth of the Baltic Sea region would very muchlove to see politicians act in the same good faith and the sameextreme competence on climate change. He underlined that cli-mate changing was happening now, not ten years in the future. Ithad been happening for a long time. It was extremely importantto have to consider it right now. Climate change was a crisis ofimmense magnitude, not only to their countries but the region ingeneral and to the world in its entirety.Session chairman Arvils Ašeradens thanked Mr Faergeman for hisinvolvement in the organisation of the Baltic Sea ParliamentaryYouth Forum which had taken place on the preceding Saturday.There was no doubt that the input of the youth in their work wasvery important. Otherwise, their work would lose sense. As thereGeneral Debate 57were no further remarks, the session chairman thanked the attend-ees for their valuable contributions and input. Everything that hadbeen said would be considered in the BSPC Standing Committee’supcoming work. He was looking forward to continuing these dis-cussions in the coming year in June, hopefully in Stockholm andnot in a digital format but rather in person. With that, Mr Ašera-dens closed the general debate.58 Third SessionTHIRD SESSIONClimate Change and BiodiversityClimate change mitigation, adaptation and thepreservation of biodiversity: trust in the state as anactor, the role of NGOs and voluntary organisationsand the importance of innovation and scienceChair: Ms Valentina Pivnenko, MP, RussiaThe session was chaired by Ms Valentina Pivnenko, formerBSPC President, MP, State Duma, Russia. She said that it wasextremely nice to meet them, at least in this format if they cannotmeet face to face. Ms Pivnenko hoped they would survive thispandemic and find a way to meet in person soon enough. In thethird session, she explained, they would be looking at an extremelyimportant item on the agenda, namely climate change and biodi-versity. They would be considering climate change mitigation,adaptation and the preservation of biodiversity, trust in the stateas an actor, the role of NGOs and voluntary organisations as wellas the importance of innovation and science. It was indeed thecase that conservation of nature and climate change was domi-nating the agenda of the Conference – as indeed, it had to. It wasall of their work because preserving the environment and naturewas not just a job they did for themselves but for future genera-tions.On this day, as the BSPC celebrated its 30th anniversary, theycould celebrate some of the things they had achieved in thoseyears. They had done much to reduce the phosphate and nutrientThird Session 59influxes that had caused algae bloom and had impacted nega-tively on marine life. Moreover, there were now internationalconventions for protecting the sea from dumping effluence fromships. HELCOM and its convention on protecting nature in theBaltic Sea had been implemented. The BSPC was focusing theirwork on protecting the environment. Now, they had seen that thefishing methods being used were ones that protected the lives ofthe entire chain of fish along with sustainable fishing. Then, therewere the particularly sensitive sea areas that were being protectedas well. At the Conference, they would be talking about an entirerange of measures to protect biodiversity and tackle climatechange while also looking at the role of youth organisations andthe role of innovation and science. Ms Pivnenko reminded heraudience that nature did not stop at their countries’ borders. Itwas incredibly important to preserve the ecosystem of the BalticSea. In many countries, numerous measures had been put intoplace.What they were not seeing enough of, though, she cautioned,were systemic research and studies across boundaries and borders.It was crucial for exchanging not just among the political stake-holders but also scientists. They had to be aware of the fact thatthe lack of nature conservation in one country would impact neg-atively on another country bordering it. All of the states werelinked together through their nature across country borders. MsPivnenko hoped that this would cause producers of goods not tohave manufacturing involving materials that could not be recy-cled, e.g., in packaging. Moreover, she wished for measures toreduce packaging quantities by up to eighty per cent. Goodsshould also be packaged in environmentally friendly packaging.The chairwoman underlined that this was not the first time thatthe BSPC had talked about this concern, and it was not just anissue that the Baltic Sea states needed to work on but rather onethat all the countries in the world had to deal with, quite inde-pendent of their political and geographical characteristics. Thatwould help protect their environmental system.She opened the discussion by presenting a video message fromMs Svenja Schulze, the German Minister of the Environment.60 Third SessionVideo Address by Svenja Schulze, Minister for theEnvironment, Nature Conservation and NuclearSafety of GermanyFederal Minister Svenja Schulze explained that climate change andbiodiversity loss were threatening the natural foundations of peo-ple’s lives. Both challenges were tightly linked, onshore and at sea.For that reason, the minister was pleased by the BSPC’s intensefocus on the interactions between climate change and biodiversity.She noted that because of this, Germany had also made this link afocus of their HELCOM Presidency.The seas were playing a key role in combating climate change, theminister went on to explain, pointing out that they absorbed heatand CO2. However, the sea and its wildlife were paying a price.Acidification was occurring and affecting more than just musselsand snails. The extra heat was making numerous species movenorthwards while changing breeding patterns and food chains.Marine ecosystems were heavily affected by climate change. How-ever, at the same time, some of them made a very effective contribu-tion to climate action. Blue carbon ecosystems, for example seagrassbeds and salt marshes, stored carbon in soil over extended periods.Ms Schulze pointed out that her ministry was currently supportingresearch on the worldwide potential of blue carbon as well as on thefactors benefitting or impairing these valuable ecosystems.In November, she said that the German Environment Ministrywould host a HELCOM workshop on the topic with policy-makersand scientists. The goals were to develop a common understandingSvenja Schulze, Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservationand Nuclear Safety of GermanyThird Session 61of blue carbon, to clarify blue carbon’s potential in the Baltic Sea,and to establish the role it could and should play in the future inmarine policy.However, Minister Schulze cautioned that the hope placed innature-based solutions like blue carbon should not cloud theirthinking. Climate change could only be stopped by sharply reduc-ing greenhouse gas emissions, both globally and here around theBaltic Sea. The latest IPCC report illustrated how important thiswas.Improving marine protected areas was another focus of the GermanHELCOM Presidency. The minister’s goal here was to make theexisting network of protected areas larger and more coherent. Shefurther wanted to ensure that all of these areas were managed effec-tively. They should not just be protected on paper. Instead, theyneeded targeted measures. For that reason, Minister Schulze was infavour of no-take zones in the German marine protected areas.These zones were meant to help the recovery of fish stocks, repre-senting a transboundary endeavour calling for cooperation amongall of the Baltic Sea countries.The speaker underlined that marine ecosystems were under enor-mous pressure. The aim of the German HELCOM Presidency wasto help reduce this pressure. Minister Schulze was pleased about theprogress the German HELCOM Presidency had made so far. Thenext HELCOM ministerial meeting would be held on the 20th ofOctober in Lübeck. The minister had set her goal for the meeting tobuild on their progress and adopt an ambitious HELCOM BalticSea Action Plan. It would not succeed without cross-party politicalsupport from the Baltic Sea area. She thanked the BSPC for theirconstructive attention to the work of HELCOM, emphasising thatshe was counting on the BSPC’s support in future.Session chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko thanked Federal MinisterSchulze for her very interesting message, noting that they wouldcontinue debating this problem. The next speaker would be MsCecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, MP from Sweden and chair of the BSPCWorking Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity.62 Third SessionReport by Ms Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby,Chairwoman of the BSPC Working Group onClimate Change and BiodiversityBSPC WG CCB chairwoman Ms Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby said it wasa great pleasure for her as the chair of the BSPC Working Group onClimate Change and Biodiversity to speak to them about the back-ground and aim of the working group as well as some of the resultsso far. First of all, this summer, they had seen countless examples ofextreme weather in different parts of the world, in the form oflong-lasting heatwaves, burning forests – as her colleague from Rus-sia had also commented on –, flooding and melting icebergs. Cli-mate change was indisputably an ongoing process that they neededto adapt to. Even more important was doing their best to counter-act and mitigate. As Minister Svenja Schulze had said so clearly andunderlined in her video message, the situation for the marine eco-systems was critical and therefore, it had been most positive to hearabout the German HELCOM presidency and its focus on biodiver-sity in this context. Ms Tenfjord-Toftby also believed that theycould all agree on the necessity of cross-party political support fromthe states around the Baltic Sea.The BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversityhad been launched at the 29th Digital Baltic Sea Parliamentary Con-ference, on 24 August 2020. When it had been established, it hadbeen decided that it should focus on the environmental aspects ofclimate change and biodiversity as well as on innovation, technol-ogy and best practices. The primary outcome of their work wouldconsist of a number of political recommendations on the topic ofclimate change and biodiversity. By acquiring knowledge fromMs Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, Chairwoman of the BSPC WorkingGroup on Climate Change and BiodiversityThird Session 63experts, learning from each other and by studying best practice ofsuccessful projects, Ms Tenfjord-Toftby was convinced that theworking group could contribute significantly to this most impor-tant task – to mitigate and counteract the effects of climate changeas well as to preserve biodiversity. As pointed out in the scope ofwork of the working group, one of its goals was to create closercooperation in the field and to facilitate far-reaching decisionsthrough parliamentary support in the whole Baltic Sea region.Regrettably, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the working grouphad not yet been able to meet each other in person. Instead, duringthis first year, they had held three digital meetings at which they hadbeen given valuable knowledge about the alarming situation con-cerning climate change, the current status of the Baltic Sea and notleast a number of successful projects with the intention to improvethe environment, both in the sea and on land. Regarding environ-mental projects, on a more local level, there seemed to be twoimportant success factors: One was to both inform and involve allparts of the local community in order to gain acceptance and under-standing for the different measures that had to be taken. The otherone was that the projects had to be very well funded and givenlong-lasting financial resources for the required activities and meas-urements.At their meeting in November 2020, she explained, the workinggroup had learned that eutrophication was still the largest threat tothe Baltic Sea and that it was necessary to reduce organic loads onthe coastal areas and restore carbon-rich ecosystems to build resil-ience. They had also been told about a project called ElectriVillage,a solar-powered hydrogen refuelling station in a small Swedishmunicipality called Mariestad. It was aiming to create a more sus-tainable society while at the same time developing new professions.At the meeting in March 2021, the working group were, amongother things, informed of the main contents and key issues of theupcoming update of the Baltic Sea Action Plan and HELCOM’sactions for a healthier Baltic Sea. They had also learned about thesuccessful project Living Coast: Regaining a Good Ecological Statusin Coastal Areas which had aimed to reduce nutrient input into theBaltic Sea.Normally, the chairwoman noted, the working groups within theBSPC had a two-year mandate but because of the fact that they hadso far been unable to arrange physical meetings which had in turncompromised their ability to draw conclusions and go forward, theworking group had taken the decision that they would like to pro-long their mandate until 2023. This would also mean that duringthe coming years, they would hopefully be given several opportuni-64 Third Sessionties to study best practice examples on location and that the qualityand outcome of their work for that reason would be even better.When it came to climate change and biodiversity, it was crucial toinclude the perspective of young people. In line with this ambition,a Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum had been arranged onAugust 28. As one part of the Youth Forum, the participants hadbeen encouraged to give a number of recommendations, aimed tobe presented to the working group. The group would, within itsframework, further include the recommendations and considerhow they could be incorporated into their work. Ms Tenfjord-Toftbyhad been deeply impressed by the engagement and knowledge thathad been shown by the young participants, and she hoped sincerelythat this had only been the beginning of a more structured collabo-ration with the younger generation in the future.The Working Group CCB’s interim report, she stated, that had nowbeen published was an overview of the current results of their work.The primary focus in the report lay on the political recommenda-tions which had been elaborated during the meeting and forwardedto the 30th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. This report shouldthus be considered as the strategic summary of their work so far.Finally, Ms Tenfjord-Toftby thanked the two vice-chairs of theworking group, Ms Liz Mattson from the Åland islands and MrKolbein Otterson Proppé from Iceland, for their valuable contribu-tions. Furthermore, she voiced her gratitude for all the members ofthe working group for their commitment, constructive discussionsand a genuinely pleasant atmosphere. She was looking forward toseeing all of them in person, and with that, she concluded her pres-entation.Session chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko thanked her for a veryinteresting full statement, with a lot of information. In Ms Pivnen-ko’s view, she and her colleagues would no doubt support the con-tinuation of the working group’s mandate until 2023 because theproblem of climate change remained one of the most importantchallenges facing all of them. Together with her colleague, Mr Elis-san Shandalovich, she was speaking with Ms Tenfjord-Toftby fromKarelia, from Petrozavodsk where they attended this assembly meet-ing. They were trying to prevent climate change in their northernregion because the heatwaves had been up to 33 – 35 °C up there inthe north. There had been terrible droughts, it had been very hot,very dry, completely different weather from what was normal there.Third Session 65Such weather conditions as these represented the change in the cli-mate that could be seen across the globe. Their Baltic Sea region,which was a particularly fragile ecosystem, was particularly at risk.She introduced the next speaker, Mr Anders Mankler, State Secre-tary to the Minister for Environment and Climate, Sweden.Address by Mr Anders Mankler, State Secretary to theMinister for Environment and Climate, SwedenState Secretary Mr Anders Mankler began by thanking the organis-ers of this Conference for the opportunity for dialogue and knowl-edge exchange on these pressing issues. As the IPCC had made clearin their latest report, climate change and its effect on water and seaswere facts and global threats. Climate change would certainly havesignificant negative impacts on the marine ecosystems. On theother hand, they could not solve the climate crisis without healthy,sustainably used and well-protected oceans. This was because ahealthy ocean absorbed both carbon dioxide and heat. Strengthen-ing the nexus between the ocean, biodiversity and climate changewas therefore a priority for Sweden. The situation was grave, theminister stressed. It was necessary to find the strength to acceleratetheir efforts. Remembering the words of the IPCC, the climate theywould experience in the future depended on their decisions now.They had to be brave.Mr Anders Mankler, State Secretary to the Minister for Environmentand Climate, Sweden66 Third SessionHe believed it hadn’t escaped anyone that water was playing a criti-cal role in both mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Thishad been made all too clear during this summer of extreme weatherevents. Forest fires, floods and extreme heatwaves leading to healthrisks, severe damage to property and ecosystems showed how vul-nerable they already were to climate change. This was happening atthis moment. So, it was crucial to work with climate change adap-tation and increasing the resilience also of the marine ecosystems.Efforts for a healthy climate went hand in hand with efforts forhealthy oceans. For example, to be able to preserve biological diver-sity in the sea, an ambitious climate policy was needed. At the sametime, resilient and healthy seas contributed to the absorption oflarge amounts of carbon dioxide, acting as a lever making other cli-mate measures more effective.The Baltic Sea, the minister went on, was their shared sea and theirshared responsibility. The well-functioning cooperation around theBaltic Sea was central both in handling the urgent pressures but alsoin contributing to the resilience of the ecosystems and welfare in thelong term. He pointed out that all of them were aware that climatechange would have significant negative impacts on marine ecosys-tems. Higher temperatures would result in less dissolved oxygen,decreased salinity and risks for higher inputs of nutrients. The risingcarbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was leading toincreased ocean acidification which was also a threat to several speciesin the food web. Urgent action was also needed for more resilient eco-systems in coastal areas and in the sea. To achieve that, it would benecessary to continue to strengthen their measures and efforts toimprove the health and resilience in the Baltic Sea in several fields.They had to continue the establishment of a representative, well-con-nected and well-managed network of marine protected areas through-out the Baltic Sea. They had to climate-proof these MPAs and focuson carbon-rich habitats such as seagrass beds and also areas that couldbecome climate refuges for vulnerable species.Sweden had stressed the need for an ambitious global target of atleast 30 per cent marine protection within the negotiations of theUN Convention on Biodiversity regarding the post-2020 frame-work for biodiversity. The situation for several fish stocks in the Bal-tic Sea, in particular cod and herring, was alarming, even if moststocks were fished according to the goal of maximum sustainability.It was necessary to implement an ecosystem-based approach to fish-eries management that also took into account the effects and inter-linkages of fisheries and fish stocks with the rest of the ecosystem.They had all seen the severe negative effect of eutrophication. So,they had to continue their efforts to reach the goals set by HEL-Third Session 67COM and reduce the inputs of both phosphorus and nitrogen tothe Baltic Sea. HELCOM was an important basis for their efforts toreach these goals and many others. An ambitious new Baltic SeaAction Plan would be imperative, Mr Mankler stressed.Their cooperation in HELCOM was also crucial to foster a com-mon view among the countries around the Baltic Sea when it cameto both problems and suitable solutions. In achieving these goals,working with the EU would also be of importance. He mentionedthe Marine Strategy Directive, the Water Framework Directive aswell as the Eco Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region. Furthermore, sci-ence was a crucial basis for effective measures and innovative solu-tions. Sweden therefore supported and engaged in the UN Decadefor Ocean Science and Sustainable Development. This was a uniqueoccasion to pool their resources, to increase their knowledge also ofthe Baltic Sea and to engage stakeholders in that work. It was fur-thermore essential to educate the young people about the value ofthe Baltic Sea. With regards to science, HELCOM also played acrucial role with their work in their many expert groups advancingthe knowledge both constantly and considerably.The State Secretary pointed out that water was a cross-cutting issue.Therefore, it was crucial to involve all relevant stakeholders to createan understanding both of ownership and participation. Local involve-ment was a prerequisite for finding new solutions and working meth-ods. The quality of the water around the globe would be – and alreadywas – changing. Undesirable effects would be even worse if they didnot reach their high ambitions on mitigation and adaptation meas-ures. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and ful-filling the promise of the Paris Agreement, their crucial buildingblocks to overcome the multiple crisis the world was facing, the direc-tion had to be the same across all sectors and organisations of theirsocieties. It was obvious that they needed the courage and the strengthto act now. In this context, the international meeting Stockholm Plus50 that Sweden would host in June 2022 presented a great opportu-nity, Mr Mankler underlined. While commemorating the fifty yearssince the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environ-ment, the Swedish vision was to engage all stakeholders and focus onhow they together could accelerate implementation and deliver onthe 2030 agenda while fostering sustainable recovery from COVID-19. Inclusively, universally, leaving no one behind. The Swedish sidesaw Stockholm Plus 50 as an essential contribution to keeping the1.5-degree goal alive. By engaging all relevant stakeholders, includingbusinesses, the scientific community, youth and others, StockholmPlus 50 could be a stepping stone to catalyse necessary and formativeactions for system change on all levels.68 Third SessionMr Mankler closed his presentation by wishing the BSPC fruitfuland productive discussions on these important topics. All of themhad important and complementary roles to play. Actors on thelocal, regional, national, global level, future and prescient policy-makers, grassroots organisations, civil society, NGOs, internationalorganisations, youth, committed individuals had to join forces inbuilding resilience faster.Chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko thanked the minister for his veryinteresting contribution. The quality of water, she agreed, was themost important strategic resource they had because it provided allof them with life and should continue to do so for decades ahead.She had to say that it was important for all of them to continuetheir trans-border cooperation aimed above all at solving the prob-lem of quality drinking water available to everyone. This was a coreof their cooperation.She moved on to give the floor to Mr Erwin Sellering, Chairman ofthe Executive Board of the Foundation for Climate and Environ-mental Protection and former Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Vor-pommern.Address by Mr Erwin Sellering, Chairman of theExecutive Board of the Foundation for Climate andEnvironmental ProtectionMr Erwin Sellering said that climate change and biodiversity were atthe heart of this Conference. He was very pleased that he couldspeak for the Foundation for Climate and Environmental Protec-tion of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. He noted that the state parlia-ment had set up this foundation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern sothat the efforts of the state government could be supported. Heopined that it had been a very good decision worth copying. Thebasic idea of the parliament was that the efforts made on a generalnational level in expanding wind energy and mitigating the carbonfootprint left by Germany had to be reflected in civil society as well,in a manner that was carried out by an independent foundation. Intheir Articles of Association, it said that the job of the century – cli-mate protection – could only succeed if the vast majority of societyunderstood just how crucial it was, how existentially important itwas. Only if it was anchored in their awareness could it really beachieved. That was the foundation’s mandate, Mr Sellering under-Third Session 69Mr Erwin Sellering, Chairman of the Executive Board of theFoundation for Climate and Environmental Protectionlined, this awareness was what they were trying to achieve. As a pri-vate foundation, governed by private law, his organisation coulddetermine their mandate themselves, free of instructions from thegovernment itself – created as a state decision but completely inde-pendent in terms of the way it worked together with civil societyand setting its agenda and goals.On this basis, the executive committee of the foundation haddefined two main areas of their mandate and had approved certainfinancial measures as well. On the one hand, for approving thefunding of third-party organisations – as a foundation that did nothave a particularly high budget, at only two million euros a year –,they had to focus on the most important areas within the scope oftheir responsibility. The focus of their work was the desirable initia-tive of individual citizens or small volunteer-based organisations.These were the type of organisation that the foundation wanted tooffer help without red tape, as simply as possible, so that they coulddo what they were trying to do. Accordingly, they tended to paysmaller funds which was usually enough to complete these projectsto 100 per cent, and they were prepared to finance these small ini-tiatives in full. Where they were working together with larger insti-tutes and foundations involved in climate change and the environ-ment, they were prepared to pay larger amounts. But these had tobe governed by clear rules and regulations in terms of their cooper-ation, Mr Sellering emphasised. First and foremost, this sum couldbe matched by larger organisations in looking for innovative solu-tions from the world of science, research and industry. They believedthat the state should fund organisations of this kind, and theywould not wish to compete with the state. For that reason, they had70 Third Sessioncome up with a new idea regarding funding for larger-scale opera-tions: It would only be for projects that did not receive any statefunding and in which the foundation’s contribution would make apositive process get off the ground. If this new idea were to be suc-cessfully implemented, there might well be eligibility for state fund-ing programmes. In other words, the foundation would only helpthese efforts get off the ground. Afterwards, they would be fundedby state or national funds.Financing third-party organisations focused particularly – from theaforementioned aspect – on developing the foundation’s own pro-jects in three main areas where they felt they had the necessary skillset among their human resources. Mr Sellering noted the organisa-tion of civil involvement processes. For example, if a local authorityor municipality wanted to carry out a climate neutrality project fac-ing conflicts of various interests that had to be figured out beforethe project could be launched, the foundation would be happy tomediate between these conflicting interests to get the effort off theground. Processes of this kind would kick off in the following week,he noted, in a small town in eastern Germany. A second mandateconcerned climate change education. That began in day-care cen-tres and primary schools. The foundation had asked many day-carecentres to explain to children just how important trees were, howimportant nature was, and the foundation wanted to provide thefunding for day-care centres. He pointed out that there were 1,000of them in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The foundation wanted togive them the money and plant trees with their children. 400 day-care centres were involved at the moment.Another area they were working on was awareness raising, trying toget people involved in combating climate change. For that, thefoundation was carrying out climate change and environmentalconferences throughout Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in various dif-ferent cities. For the BSPC Conference today, what was perhaps ofgreater interest was the event the foundation had held in mid-Au-gust on the removal of sea-dumped munitions and unexploded ord-nance. Delegates from the BSPC had joined the foundation withmany other experts to acquire more information on this difficultissue. The foundation was also highly interested in ensuring thatpeople became aware of just how important it was to remove sea-dumped munitions if they were to keep the Baltic Sea protectedfrom this massive danger for their future. The job of removing sea-dumped munitions would only be successful if all the Baltic Searegion states got involved in removing these munitions and unex-ploded ordnance from the seabed. There had been a great deal ofprogress in the field of removing dumped munitions and unex-Third Session 71ploded ordnance, Mr Sellering pointed out. There was also a clearunderstanding of where they were to be found, in terms of the map-ping of these munitions on the seabed. But to be successful, seriousprogress had to be made on technological ways of tackling the prob-lem. He believed that cooperation between the Baltic Sea states inthis technology of how best to remove sea-dumped munitions wasimportant. Mr Sellering emphasised his appeal to the parliamentar-ians, adding that he welcomed contacts from them.Session chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko thanked Mr Sellering forhis very interesting statements. She yielded the floor to the repre-sentatives of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum.Address by Ms Kamila Ciok, Poland, and Mr LiviuPintilie, Estonia, Representatives of the Baltic SeaParliamentary Youth ForumMr Liviu Pintilie explained that he was a Romanian resident inEstonia. Together with Kamila Ciok, on behalf of the Baltic SeaParliamentary Youth Forum, they were going to present some of theforum’s recommendations. There had been a very large pool ofdrafts and ideas to discuss. Different arguments and very discus-sions had been held between the participants. In the end, they haddecided that the recommendations needed to be very practical andvery strong-worded. They had to be solid rather than vague ideasMs Kamila Ciok, Poland, and Mr Liviu Pintilie, Estonia,Representatives of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum72 Third Sessionand applied right away. He noted that the forum itself had beenvery interesting; the discussions had been very civic. Mr Pintilie feltthat this had been the ideal place for each of them to express theiropinions. He hoped that in the future, similar events would beorganised.Moving on to the recommendations, he began with the first con-cerning innovation. The forum called on the governments in theBaltic Sea region, the CBSS and the EU to implement methods ofnature-friendly farming and actively phase out the use of syntheticpesticides and fertilisers by local farmers as well as allocate funds toresearching less hazardous alternatives. All of that should be done incollaboration with think tanks and expert organisations to makesure that the policies were well connected to science. It was theirconviction that this recommendation included many aspects of life– soil, sea, vegetation, fauna and public health – and that the use ofpesticides and fertilisers entailed all these domains of life, with pos-sible long-term consequences. The use of hazardous substances inthis field could affect not only the environment but also human lifeand eventually offered no clear advantage in the long term. Sec-ondly, they called for support for sustainable innovation in greenenergy, to reduce the use of non-renewable sources of energy andsupport innovation to make urban life more sustainable by enhanc-ing green transportation solutions. Again, this should be done incollaboration with science. It was the forum’s belief that all theserecommendations and ideas had to be implemented in relation withscience and scientific research. As for the Baltic Sea region, they hadcome to the conclusion that there was a great potential. To anextent, it was already exploiting this potential, but the forumbelieved there was room for improvement. Here, Mr Pintiliepointed at the Baltic countries and Poland.Next, he spoke about the circular economy. Another idea was todevelop and implement policies and regulations around fishing andother industries, together with companies in power which wereharming the biodiversity in the Baltic Sea, to align them with theneeds according to the IPCC report and the Paris Agreement.Directing attention to a provided chart, Mr Pintilie said that by2019, the excess from fishing had already reached an exceedinglevel. The forum had been aware that fishing was a delicate subject,especially in the Baltic Sea region. It was a problem because even theBaltic Sea had issues with oxygen level. Therefore, it had to beensured that the quotas for fishing did not exceed the maximumlevels. Otherwise, very bad consequences would ensue in the longterm, and eutrophication would engender the growth of algalblooms again. The second recommendation regarding the circularThird Session 73economy was to promote the building of facilities from recycledmaterials, to develop regulations regarding the re-use of construc-tion materials, to establish plans for the re-use of materials as a pre-requisite for demolition permits as part of the effort of finding sus-tainable supply lines along the Baltic Sea and to introduce publicbail systems for plastic bottles in the Baltic Sea region. Mr Pintilieunderlined that the forum was aware that a lot of countries aroundthe Baltic Sea were already taking steps towards this. The idea wasto find solutions to establish the perfect balance between humanutility and sustainability as well as the preservation of nature.Ms Kamila Ciok took over and said she was honoured to be amongthose who cared and showed respect. Being part of the Baltic SeaParliamentary Youth Forum had opened dialogue and expressed theyoung people’s need to take active participation in the processes ofhelping the global village. She remembered two years earlier meet-ing a man at UNESCO World Heritage site Petra in Jordan. He hadbeen an old man, full of peace and kindness. They had had tea at hishouse there. She remembered asking him why he had stayed whenall people from his village had been moved outside Petra and beenprovided with running water and electricity. He had looked at MsCiok and said, “Kamila, I was born here. I wanted to live freely,happy and with understanding of my roots. I had my vision of life,and that was my priority.” The speaker asked all of the attendeeswhat their vision of life was, together with nature, what their prior-ities as a society were regarding being part of the ecosystem. Shewondered what they needed to do to balance their life with nature.Conventions, agreements and plans were supposed to be the plat-form where ideas were made and what they needed as a civilisationwas created in a way that made progress, improving the state theywere facing at this moment. Their task was to work on them in aproductive manner, taking into account all voices and signs leftbehind now. To do that, they had to develop new and strengthenexisting multinational cooperation, such as HELCOM. It was nec-essary to employ an ecosystem approach to manage human activi-ties at sea and on land, acting to promote land-sea interaction andpolicy integration to reduce land abuse and eutrophication. Theyneeded to support and encourage sustainability through nature-based solutions across all different sectors of the economy in theBaltic Sea region. The forum understood that sustainable food sys-tems were the ones based on nature, promoting local and healthyfood, mitigating the impact associated with international trade andsupporting local farmers.Ms Ciok implored her listeners to not misunderstand her words.They were not about pushing the responsibility or who to blame,74 Third Sessionthey were about moving forward and forgiveness, building theirfuture on the shoulders of their past mistakes and successes. Theywere about taking the lessons seriously and having them on theirminds, being rational, being emotional, thinking with heart, think-ing with brain – these were not separate things, she insisted, butcomplementary elements of existence, of understanding what hadto be done together. The young generation were striving for cooper-ation, inclusivity, empathy and being engaged in the decision-mak-ing process. They were not afraid of speaking their minds. Instead,they were taking seriously what they were seeking. They were wor-ried. That being said, they were ready to act, Ms Ciok said. Theyhad hope in all of them as human beings, as facilitators of innova-tive and inclusive change. Finally, the young people had hope in allwho cared about nature as the roots of everyday life. She asked theattendees to understand that absolute freedom did not mean worry-ing about what was going to happen tomorrow but be happy aboutwhat one had done today. That was their mission as young people,she said, this was their choice. This was their biggest chance to makeit possible.Chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko thanked both of them. Their pro-posals were quite interesting and professional. She was confidentthat these would become part of the working programme of theBSPC in the years to come. These were good solutions, importantand valuable ideas.Address by Ms Liz Mattson, MP of Åland,Vice-Chair of BSPC Working Group CCBMs Liz Mattson noted that Åland was an autonomous part of Fin-land, with autonomy and its own flag. The island was located in themiddle of the Baltic Sea. The ocean around them had great impor-tance for everyone living there. Together with all of the attendees,they had an obligation to manage the challenges around the sea, theenvironment and climate for the future. The summer of 2018 hadbeen the driest since 1955 in Åland and had had much greater con-sequences for their local agriculture. Moreover, the summer hadbeen an unusually hot one. It was not only on land that tempera-tures had been higher than usual but also in the ocean. An academicbiological research station and other researchers had investigatedthe sea around Åland. This year, the research station had reportedThird Session 75Ms Liz Mattson, MP of Åland, Vice-Chair of BSPC Working GroupCCBtwo marine heatwaves in the surrounding sea. The last one, in July,had been the longest measured since measurements had begun in2005. When the hot water had come to Åland early this year, theyhad noticed a larger number of liquid algae in the water. The warmwater also affected fish, especially species such as salmon and codwhich thrived best in waters below 20 °C. The Ålanders had alwayslived together with the sea. Their surrounding sea made the autumnlong and mild. Therefore, Åland was well suited for food produc-tion. Fishing had also always been a part of life. The island pro-duced a variety of foods that were exported to nearby regions. Foodproduction was an important industry for Åland. Climate changewas not only affecting the sea but also the forests which were anothersignificant part of income for the island. In 2019, Åland had beenhit by Alfreda, the worst storm in northern climes. Long, dry peri-ods were interspersed with heavy rainfalls along with great quanti-ties of pests affecting the harvests.The small autonomous society was a perfect platform for innova-tion and testing new technologies, Ms Mattson explained. In recentyears, they had for example worked extensively with circular sys-tems and collaborated with farmers to reduce emissions and havemore cultivation without leaching as well as a smart water supply.Biogas and other effective energy supplies were also on the agenda.In Åland, she believed they had many good examples of how to usethe common agripolicy programme to engage and involve citizensin the local work for the environment. Climate work was long-termand took time before concrete results would become visible. Therewas more than one example in Åland where they could see ongoingclimate work, and local involvement around cleaner water had actu-76 Third Sessionally yielded results. People in that summer had documented cleanerwater in different places around the island than they had seen inmany years and had moreover noticed seaweed that had once againbegun to thrive in the natural marine environment. This was onlyan observation by local people rather than research. Nevertheless, itgave some hope at least, Ms Mattson underlined.The countries in the Baltic Sea region had a great shared responsi-bility for the sea, biodiversity and climate. They had to respect andcooperate with nature. Together, they had to create innovation andlegislation providing long-term concrete results for the Baltic Searegion. The latest IPCC report and all the information about cli-mate change that the working group of the BSPC had been given byexperts were alarming and gloomy in many ways. To deal with thechallenges around climate change and biodiversity, it was necessaryto find new possibilities to cooperate and exchange innovation andknowledge with each other. Ms Mattson was sure that there was alot that countries and regions could learn from each other by shar-ing their best practices. Cooperation and innovation always drovechange and development. Each human was important in the workfor the climate and had a responsibility for change. It was requiredto speed up the work on climate change, and the speaker empha-sised that only together could they make a big difference.Chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko voiced her gratitude, noting thatthis had been an interesting and inspiring contribution. She furtherthanked Ms Mattson for her work in her capacity as a vice-chair ofthe BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity.The chairwoman moved on to introduce the next speaker, Dr VadimSivkov.Address by Dr Vadim V. Sivkov, Director ofthe Atlantic Branch of the Shirshov Institute ofOceanology of the Russian Academy of Science andthe Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science,Kaliningrad regionDr Vadim Sivkov spoke about recent occurrences in the RussianFederation in the context of the carbon test sites in the Kaliningradregion. He believed this was relatively new information and notparticularly well known outside the area. He noted that he repre-Third Session 77Dr Vadim V. Sivkov, Director of the Atlantic Branch of the ShirshovInstitute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Science and theFederal State Budgetary Institution of Science, Kaliningrad regionsented the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Acad-emy of Science as well as the Immanuel Kant Baltic University. Hisspeech concerned the problem of greenhouse gas emissions and thecarbon test site for sequestration in the Kaliningrad region. Thedemands of the international community set out in the Paris Agree-ment on emission reduction involved significant financial and reg-ulatory instruments, including emission quotas. Although thesegases were well mixed, as had been mentioned before, and theirimpact on the climate was worldwide, their original sources werestrictly linked to the economies of specific countries. Consequently,monetisation including quotas and taxes would be targeted toreflect this. These international agreements were scheduled to startcoming into force from 2023 on. The main indicator in assessingthe gas emissions in countries would be the net emissions. Therewas a difference between the emission and the removal of green-house gases from the atmosphere, the speaker pointed out, addingthat the assessment or inventory of climate-active emissions by eachcountry became a problem of reliably quantifying anthropogenicand natural sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. Quantitativemethod of a “carbon economy” had to be developed to producerobust economic estimates based on an inventory of climate-activegases to develop an efficient and cost-effective strategy for reducingtheir emissions and increasing their removal from the atmosphere,i.e., their sequestration.In this context, with the need to increase the efficiency of scientificand technical activities in the field of the environment to developclimate change-related measures, the ministry of science and higher78 Third Sessioneducation of the Russian Federation had issued Order No. 74 on 5February 2021, On Test Sites for the Development for Testing ofCarbon Control Technologies. Said order proscribed the imple-mentation of a pilot project to establish what were called carbon testsites in the Russian Federation. In the context of the need to increasethe efficacy of this, the National Action Plan for the First Phase ofthe Adaptation to Climate Change for the period of up to 2022 hadbeen approved by a decree of the Russian government on 25 Decem-ber 2019. That decree of 5 February 2021 on establishing test sitesand developing carbon control technologies was the subject of hisaddress to the BSPC Conference.Dr Siskov presented a slide enumerating the key elements of theParis Agreement. He moved on to showing a map of the Kalinin-grad oblast area, with two spots highlighting the locations of thetwo test sites, both named – because of their shapes – “carbon pol-ygons”. One site was at sea, the other on land. He explained that thecarbon test sites in Kaliningrad were the only ones on the list iden-tified by the Russian ministry of science and higher education andwere located at the heart of Europe. He pointed to the land site inthe Kaliningrad region, noting the sea-located one as well. Dr Sis-kov stated that these were in the Baltic Sea basin and thus had to beof interest to the BSPC Conference as a result of their locationalone. He said that all of these carbon sequestration sites had a testquality management in the sense that they would involve youth.Therefore, they had been identified by the Russian ministry of sci-ence and higher education. The test site’s location at the heart ofEurope was important because the European Union had the moststringent requirements for the production of greenhouse gas emis-sions. Thus, being sited in the Russian Federation was important.Dr Siskov pointed out that the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal Uni-versity in Kaliningrad had been designated the operator of theKaliningrad carbon test site programme together with the Atlanticbranch of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the RussianAcademy of Science, which was also located in Kaliningrad. Theonshore Kaliningrad carbon test site was located in the central partof the Kaliningrad region within the Wittgirren peat bog, which isconsidered by the regional authorities as an experimental area forsecondary bog formation to increase carbon sequestration and cap-ture from the atmosphere. To date, pre-studies of the ecologicalstate of the peat bog had been carried out. A concept for the resto-ration of the natural bog ecosystem had been developed, and map-ping had already been carried out. Presently, the site was being con-structed. Dr Siskov noted that all this had taken place in the courseof one year. Accordingly, there was a great deal of progress beingmade. He presented a slide showing two pictures of the peat bog siteThird Session 79in Wittgirren, one showing circular tents and parked motor homeson a clearing within a forest area while the other featured severalexpedition members investigating the bog ground.As for the offshore site, it was located in the territorial waters of theRussian Federation to the west of the coast of the Kaliningradregion. There were two sectors of the Baltic Sea in Russian waters,one around the Leningrad region near St Petersburg and the otherjust off Kaliningrad. A slide showed a number of images from themarine test site, one of them displaying a sailboat near a buoy,another a project sign on a boat, and the third showed researchersin a laboratory setting. The offshore carbon sequestration testingsite was in the Baltic Sea for two reasons, Dr Siskov explained. Onewas that, in the context of the carbon agenda, the Baltic Sea was aunique basin. It was a transboundary sea with a high anthropogenicload. The level of water eutrophication was unprecedentedly highand as a consequence, the rates of primary bioproduction – or pho-tosynthesis – were high. Therefore, as had been mentioned by MsSchulze at the start of the session, the Baltic Sea on a global scalewas clearly at the highest range of absorption or sequestration ofcarbon dioxide, one of the major greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, asMs Schulze had said, the Baltic Sea was paying a very high price forthat. That was almost a contradiction, Dr Siskov explained: Whatwas good for planet earth as a whole, namely the higher-level seques-tration of carbon dioxide by the Baltic Sea, was not a good thing forthe Baltic Sea itself. He presented a slide illustrating eutrophicationand algae bloom in the Baltic Sea, with the location of their offshoresite marked. Said location had been chosen because of presence onthe seabed of one of the largest areas of sediment in the Baltic Sea,saturated with greenhouse hydrocarbon gases, mainly methane(CH4). That, he added, was causing the high levels of eutrophica-tion there. These were two factors in one which served as the reasonfor the selection of the location.Thanks to the BFU’s cooperation with his institute, initial measure-ments of key environmental parameters of the offshore site hadbegun as early as April 2021. Dr Siskov pointed out that this wasonly two months after the decree had been issued. The first meas-urement results confirmed the representative nature of the surveyedarea. Precise monitoring measurements of the flows of major cli-mate-active gases were planned for the near future. The offshore sitewould be provided with a remote monitoring system based on theuse of satellites and unmanned platforms equipped with the neces-sary sensor instrumentation. Experimental assessments of theuptake potential of the marine ecosystem would be conducted toevaluate their sequestration potential under various natural and80 Third Sessionanthropogenic conditions. Standardized measuring instrumenta-tion requirements would be substantiated and developed for furtheradaptation at other offshore sites at other locations throughout thecountry. The successful operation of the carbon test sites in theKaliningrad region would contribute to integrating the nationalprogramme for monitoring climate-active gases into the nationalobservation and research programmes. Dr Siskov pointed out thatthere were numerous such programmes in place. Therefore, it wasnecessary to have sound figures, and monitoring had to be devel-oped and maintained. As a result, the Kant University in coopera-tion with his institute as well as other leading scientific institutions– including some from abroad – would be creating a new level ofexpertise and consolidating knowledge from different fields. Whatthey would be looking at was collating knowledge from fields of cli-matology, meteorology, oceanology, numerical modelling, measure-ment technology, machine learning etc. by adapting existing anddeveloping new master and PhD programmes as well as new educa-tional formats related to the test sites themselves. At Kant Univer-sity, they already had a master’s programme entitled Geoecology ofthe Ocean and Coastal Territories. One of the educational formatsat the university was known as the “floating university” where youngpeople, schools and university students were brought together, andthe lectures were held on board their scientific vessel. The speakerreiterated that the Baltic Sea basin around Russia was unique in itscomposition. There was a high level of research being carried out onthe Baltic Sea, with one of the largest fleets of research vessels in theworld.Dr Siskov noted that he had very much appreciated what he hadheard from the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum earlier on.He invited the youth forum participants to come along to one ofthe university’s research programmes that they had established onthe “floating university”. This programme had been running forfour years, and before the pandemic, there had been a lot of stu-dents and teachers from European universities visiting them. Thesedays, they had been forced to put all of this collaboration on holdbecause of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their European col-leagues were not able to join them at this point. Hopefully, thatwould change in the future so that Europeans could join the “float-ing university” once again.Session chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko thanked Dr Siskov for hisvery interesting speech. She believed all of her colleagues were inter-ested in this invitation as well because this was a programme directlyThird Session 81linked to an environmental aspect of the Baltic Sea, one that theyhad been researching for a number of years now in various contexts.It was Ms Pivnenko’s view that the BSPC would want to invite notjust the Parliamentary Youth Forum to get involved but also anyother colleagues who would like to do so. The chairwoman wishedDr Siskov every success because this was a very important and inter-esting type of work, and it was also crucial that progress was madein these endeavours. On behalf of the parliament of the RussianState Federation, she said that – where necessary – they would bevery glad to support Dr Siskov and offer help in various ways wherethey could.With that, she announced that they had heard all of the speakers ontheir list for this session and opened the floor for comments, remarksor questions.Mr Sergey Perminov, Member ofthe Council of the Russian Feder-ation, congratulated Mr ErwinSellering and thanked him for hisvery clear statement around bio-diversity and preserving the spe-cial status of the Baltic Sea. Hiscolleagues had focused on thisissue for a long time. Mr Perminov was very grateful. His side hadworked together with Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on various stra-tegic projects, particularly around environmental safety which wassuch an important issue. They had collaborated closely with theircolleagues in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for many, many years onquestions of this nature and had had very good experience withthem, not least when it came to fostering populations of new typesof fish and new types of plants as well. He reiterated his gratitudeand asked Mr Sellering to relay his best regards to State Prime Min-ister Manuela Schwesig. Mr Perminov added that the Russianenergy industry was among the top five in the world when it cameto mitigating carbon footprints. In other words, Russia had excel-lent equipment which had been installed to mitigate carbon emis-sions, leading to a very small carbon footprint. They had laid pipesand re-used existing pipes in order to absorb carbon better. He wasquick to assure that this did not mean Russia had achieved all oftheir goals but that they had to continue working on this matter.His colleagues from the Leningrad region, though, were very activein this regard. Mr Perminov emphasised that the Russian Federa-tion had very ambitious environmental programmes that they hadput in place and did not want to stay fifth in the world. Rather, theywanted to get even better in their ranking for having a low carbon82 Third Sessionfootprint. It was his view that Ms Pivnenko and her colleagues inthe Senate as well as all of them considered this issue very impor-tant.Chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko commented that they certainlywanted to give the planet back to the young people the way theyhad received it. She thanked Mr Perminov very much.Ms Ulrike Sparr, MP Hamburg,noted that she had listened to thevery interesting presentationfrom Russia. The projects Dr Sis-kov had mentioned made sense,and she added that Mecklen-burg-Vorpommern had insti-tuted similar projects, based inHamburg. She wondered what was done in order to make sure thatthe swamps and moors remained as they were in spite of hot sum-mers and not enough rain. She asked what options Dr Siskov saw inthat regard. Secondly, Ms Sparr wondered if it would not be betterto give up fossil fuels altogether or reduce their use.Dr Vadim Sivkov conceded thathe was not prepared to give ananswer in terms of what might orwould happen to the bogs andmarshland. He did say that theirinvestigations at the site had onlystarted this year, and they wereresearching the moors. This was anew field of research for them. Economists would have to giveanswers or comment on the situation, he expected, and the samewent for the exploitation of mineral resources. That was not hisfield, he pointed out. As he saw the situation, fossil fuels would con-tinue to have to be used in the next centuries.Mr Sergey Perminov commented that Russia would keep the marsh-lands safe. They had identified protected areas. This could be foundall over the Russian Federation. Certain preserves and protectivemeasures for the bogs were in place. The laws pertaining to the ecol-ogy and the protection of nature were among the strictest in Europe,he assured. As far as renewable energy was concerned or giving upfossil fuels, that was not an ecological or political question, ratherthis was a technological question. Even the greenest technologyconstituted a major risk with respect to its recycling and its disposal.He clarified he was talking about rare earths in this respect. TheThird Session 83European Green Deal implied an investment of one billion euros,but they were still trying to find alternative options in order to doaway with fossil fuels altogether. Accordingly, it was still necessaryto use the energy balance currently in place. Of course, in the future,they would have to make use of the infrastructure which was avail-able for the energy grid, for the transmission of energy, for the useof energy like wind parks, hydrogen offshore sites. Mr Perminovwas certain this would be the future. At the present day, they werenot in a situation to replace fossil fuels completely. In July 2021,one tonne of coal had become more expensive in terms of the sharesprice at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. However, it was necessaryto work on this transition, and they required the capacities and thetechnological setting for that. A key goal was reducing their carbonfootprint. That was certainly what all of them had to think about. Itwas impossible to give up fossil fuels over night because electricitydid not just come from the plug in the wall. All of them knew thatthis was an economic chain, and it was necessary to deal with thetechnological tasks. Otherwise, the transition to green energy wouldnot work. Mr Perminov concluded by emphasising that this wouldnot happen overnight.Session chairwoman Valentina Pivnenko commented that SenatorPerminov was speaking to the Conference from his car as he wascurrently travelling in central Russia, towards Moscow.Mr Jonas Faergeman from Den-mark spoke on the transitionfrom fossil fuels to green energy.He conceded that it could nothappen overnight. He doubtedthat anyone was suggesting this.However, he insisted that thechangeover to green energy wasvery much possible. That could not only be seen in developed coun-tries but also in what used to be called underdeveloped countries.India was currently the only country in the world so far that was onpar with the Paris Agreement goals. They had just leapfrogged sometechnologies to go straight to green energy. There were huts made ofclay and grass in the Saharan countries which had solar panelsattached to their huts. He insisted that the issue had nothing to dowith money. It was cheaper. Instead, it was all about political will.Saying that we could not from fossil fuels to green energy onlyshowed a lack of legislative and political power as well as, he empha-sised, a lack of competency. Of course, it took time, and he furtherconceded that the better prepared one was, the faster the transitioncould be implemented. Furthermore, the transition had to be just.84 Third SessionThat was one of the three pillars in the European Green Deal. Heappreciated that. But he again insisted that of course, they could gofor green energy, and it was cheaper and more efficient. It was onlylack of will that prevented it.State Secretary Anders Mankler ofSweden wished to offer a coupleof quick words before the end ofthe session. To begin with, tokeep future climate change andits effects to a minimum, it wasnecessary to simultaneouslyincrease and intensify mitigationmeasures against climate change, including of course the transitionto green energy. It was also necessary to increase adaptation effortsby strengthening natural ecosystems and systems to ensure resil-ience. Furthermore, climate risks had to be reduced. In this context,Mr Mankler mentioned that the Swedish government wanted tomake greater use of nature-based solutions in order to preserve bio-logical diversity and to contribute to solving various environmentaland climate issues. Basically, and finally, the state secretary pointedout that the world was facing great challenges. Despite the tragediesfrom the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it had also highlightedtheir ability to adapt. They now knew that they had the capacity tochange. They should use that to transform their way of living to onethat was in line with reaching the Sustainable Development Goals.Actions on sustainable water management, reducing climate change,increasing climate change mitigation needed to be the backbone ofthe ongoing recovery from the pandemic.As there were no further remarks or questions, session chairwomanMs Valentina Pivnenko said that this session had indeed been a veryinteresting one as well as very constructive. She felt there had beena lot of proposals that had to be taken into account in the BSPC’sfuture work. As such, the chairwoman thanked all of the partici-pants of this session and very much hoped that their work would becontinued in this fruitful manner within the framework of theworking group that had been mentioned on this day and in theextended format of said working group. Moreover, she was gratefulfor the orientation they had received on climate change and envi-ronment and voiced her hope that the respective efforts wouldprove successful.With that, session chairwoman Ms Pivnenko concluded the thirdsession of the BSPC Conference.Ceremonial Session 85CEREMONIAL SESSIONin Honour of the 30th BSPCFormer Presidents together with youth representative:Baltic Sea Parliamentary Cooperation yesterday,today and tomorrowModerators: Ms Carola Veit, President of the Hamburg State Parlia-ment, Former President of the BSPCMr Jörgen Pettersson, MP Åland and Former President of the BSPCSession moderator Ms Carola Veit, President of the Hamburg StateParliament, announced that she would be taking over the floor forthe next session. She warmly welcomed everyone to the ceremonialsession in honour of the 30th BSPC. The BSPC had again provedthat they were able to prepare and hold a fruitful conference at ahigh level, even if digital. This stood in a very long tradition of over30 years – a remarkable time, keeping in mind that they were talk-ing about an international political meeting, joining national andregional parliaments of partly different political orientation. Not toforget, they had never missed one of their conferences nor any ofthe committee meetings in-between. That showed how serious theBSPC was about their work. That was only one thing that was reallydifferent in this year, as it was also the first time that a BSPC hostwas chairing the organisation for more than one year. Ms Veitthanked Mr Niemi for that, adding that all of them were lookingforward to meeting under the president’s hospitality in the follow-ing summer.86 Ceremonial SessionShe reiterated her welcome to this session and noted that she herselfhad been president of the BSPC from 2017 to 2018. Afterwards,she had served as the vice-chair of the BSPC Working Group onMigration and Immigration and had continued as Rapporteur inthis field since then. She announced that she would share hostingthis panel with her esteemed colleague, Mr Jörgen Pettersson fromthe Åland islands. Ms Veit commented that both of them were awell-rehearsed team in this respect as they had led several venuestogether, with Mr Pettersson adding a special point of view to theirmeetings. She mentioned this to illustrate the cooperation of theBSPC, which was a very familial one, despite all seriousness and thestruggle for respected positions on how to meet the challenges inthe Baltic Sea region and beyond. Ms Veit noted that Mr Petterssonwas actually on the move, voicing her hope that this would all workout in terms of technology.Session moderator Mr Jörgen Pettersson, MP Åland and formerPresident of the BSPC thanked Ms Veit for this introduction whichreminded him of the familiar atmosphere she and all of them hadmanaged to create. The need for this was more important than everin a time of crisis. Thanks to digital achievements, it was possible tostay in contact even though times were challenging. He pointed outthat, on the one hand, digital events had the disadvantage that onecould not meet each other directly but, on the other, sometimes hadthe advantage of being able to attend a conference even under unu-sual circumstances. For example, Mr Pettersson noted that he wascurrently at the Mariehamn airport, for the first time in a year anda half, waiting for a plane to Copenhagen for an important mari-time conference. It would not have been possible for him to attendboth events as part of an on-site conference.Mr Pettersson explained that he was a member of the Åland parlia-ment and had been president of the BSPC from 2017 to 2018. Thathad been a year never to forget, and it had been the first time thatÅland had held the presidency of the BSPC. He still rememberedevery detail of their conference in Mariehamn and thanked every-one who had attended that. Together with his esteemed colleague,Mr Jochen Schulte of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, he had also beenBSPC Rapporteur on Maritime Affairs for many years now. MrSchulte, he added, would present their joint report later on that day.Mr Pettersson urged his audience to listen to that report and read itas well as it was full of useful and vital information about a businessbranch that was creating trade, contacts, peace and prosperity allover the world.Ceremonial Session 87That was one of the achievements in their parliamentary coopera-tion, and that was why the role of the BSPC was getting strongerevery year. They did not just move at the surface but dealt in-depthwith complex issues. Together with experts in working groups andthrough rapporteurs and observers in other institutions, based onintense discussions with experts from science, business, society andpolitics, the BSPC derived their recommendations for action to giveto governments. Mr Pettersson liked the idea of the BSPC as a thinktank for policies, aiming towards a better and cleaner future for allof them, surrounding the Baltic Sea. He could only underline whatMs Veit had just said. Despite all the intensive cooperation and con-tact, they had been and always were aware that everyone of themwas a human being, that they were facing similar or the same chal-lenges, that they represented the interests of the people who hadelected them in their countries and across countries and within theframework of a temporary mandate as MPs. So, this strengthenedthe understanding among each other because they were partly insimilar situations and brought these experiences into their discus-sions. That was precisely why an additional perspective and legiti-macy also characterised the deliberations among parliamentarians.That added a different basis to their deliberative results. Therefore,they had to always keep this in mind and strengthen the parliamen-tary dimension in the entire Baltic Sea region. The BSPC, Mr Pet-tersson emphasised, stood for hope, peace, knowledge and a strongbelief in the future of democracy and the Baltic Sea that united allof them in their daily work. The speaker offered his gratitude forfriendship and insight and returned the screen to Ms Veit to intro-duce the round table participants.Ms Carola Veit explained that they would reflect on the past and thefuture in this round table ceremonial session together with theircolleagues. All of these had once been presidents of the BSPC, withthe exception of the representative of the young generation. Thefirst in this digital round to give the audience an impression of hispresidency and experience with the BSPC was her esteemed col-league, Prof Jānis Vucāns. He not only had long-standing experi-ence in the BSPC’s work but had also been president of the BalticAssembly, partly at the same time as his BSPC presidency and after-wards for a second round. In other words, he was very much expe-rienced, Ms Veit pointed out, adding that she had received the pres-idential baton from Prof Vucāns five years earlier in Riga. There, theBSPC had impressively celebrated their 25th anniversary under hispresidency.88 Ceremonial SessionAddress by Prof Jānis Vucāns, MP, Former Presidentof the BSPC as well as Vice-President and formerPresident of the Baltic AssemblyProf Jānis Vucāns, MP, Former President of the BSPC as well asVice-President and former President of the Baltic AssemblyProf Jānis Vucāns explained that it was a great privilege and honourfor him to participate in this ceremonial session, together with suchexperienced colleagues as Ms Veit, Mr Pettersson, Mr Franz Thönnes,Ms Valentina Pivnenko, Ms Christina Gestrin and also a representa-tive of the youth parliament, Mr Jonas Faergeman. There had been alot of political changes in 1991, the famous year which had been writ-ten from both ends. Therefore, now in this year, they were celebratinga number of 30-year anniversaries – not only for states but also forinternational organisations established in this year. That applied notonly to the BSPC but also to the Baltic Assembly and other organisa-tions. If one looked at the homepage of the BSPC, one saw that theorganisation had been established in 1991 as a forum for political dia-logue between parliamentarians from the Baltic Sea region. The aimof the BSPC then had been – and still was to this day – to raise theawareness and opinion on issues of current political interest and rele-vance for the Baltic Sea region. Moreover, the goal was to promoteand drive various initiatives and efforts to support a sustainable envi-ronment as well as the social and economic development of the BalticSea region. Another aim of the BSPC had been and still was to strivetowards enhancing the visibility of the Baltic Sea region and its issuesin a wider European context.Looking towards the future, the professor went on, he had to thinkabout the way the BSPC had been set up so far and whether it hadfulfilled the tasks that had led to the creation of the BSPC thirtyCeremonial Session 89years earlier. Another aspect for consideration was whether it wastime to adjust these tasks themselves because this day, they lived ina world that had changed significantly during those 30 years. All ofthese changes had already been talked about and discussed at thepresent conference and also at the Parliamentary Youth Forum onthe preceding Saturday. This environment of changes had been verywell marked by several speakers, including BSPC Vice-PresidentJohannes Schraps, Mr Perminov and others. For more than tenyears, Mr Vucāns had been given the opportunity to be involvednot only in the work of the BSPC, but he had also been one of theleaders of the Baltic Assembly. Moreover, he had had the ability tofollow other interparliamentary organisations and how they wereoperating and changing, like the Nordic Council, the Benelux Par-liament, PABSEC and others of its kind. That had also given himcause for reflections.Of course, each of the participants represented their country and itsparliament, but the purpose of why they had gathered in the BSPCforum was to seek opportunities for cooperation, understandingand to create a vision for the future of the Baltic Sea region. If nec-essary, they had sought to bring these new aspects to life in the leg-islation of their countries. He thought that this aspect of regionallycoordinated legislation – that they as parliamentarians should paymore attention to – was very crucial. Years ago, during the Latvianpresidency, Mr Vucāns had had the honour of leading their organi-sation, analysing the reports provided by governments on the issuesraised by the BSPC. They had made the experience that the questfor information by the governments should be as concise as possi-ble. Questions should be asked as accurately as possible so thatequally accurate answers could be obtained. He thought that the sit-uation in this area had improved in recent years, thanks to the expe-rience and the broad knowledge horizons of the BSPC SecretaryGeneral Bodo Bahr. Prof Vucāns offered his special gratitude to MrBahr. There were a lot of other issues he could speak about, but hehad decided to leave the floor for other colleagues. Prof Vucānswished all of them good feelings during those days.Session moderator Carola Veit thanked Prof Vucāns for his contri-bution and reflecting on reports and the way the BSPC was address-ing their governments, noting that they had been working on thisand had improved their procedure. She asked the professor if onetopic was more and more affecting almost every discussion, namelyclimate change which had become more serious.Prof Jānis Vucāns confirmed this, adding that climate change was avery, very important topic. Moreover, they had already heard a lot90 Ceremonial Sessionabout this at the Conference. To his mind, the climate programme– in a very wide sense – included the circular economy, energeticaspects and other concerns; it had to be on the agenda for the BSPC.But their main partner in this endeavour was the Council of BalticSea States (CBSS). At the Conference, they had heard that univer-sities were prepared to participate in research in the fields related toclimate change. That was very important, he underlined. He furthersupported that their work had to be enhanced with respect to cli-mate change but also to take a deeper look at how research in thisfield could be stimulated. The reason for that was that research wasthe foundation for everything in this regard.Mr Jörgen Pettersson thanked both Ms Veit and Prof Vucāns for agreat start to an inspirational afternoon. He singled out Prof Vucānsas one of the veterans in the BSPC, and he himself had learned a lotfrom said veteran. He thanked Mr Vucāns for attending this sessionand moved on to another veteran in the BSPC, Ms Valentina Piv-nenko. She had become a dear friend over the years. They hadshared ice cream in Moscow, had had serious discussions and hadlaughed a lot. Mr Pettersson always thought about the enthusiasmand knowledge that Ms Pivnenko had brought to the table. He washappy that she would also share with them her long-standing expe-rience in the work of the BSPC, even in the last days of her electioncampaign at the present. Valentina Pivnenko had been head of thedelegation to the BSPC from the Russian State Duma for ages,although she was not very old, he added. She had been the BSPCpresident ten years earlier, from 2011 – 2012, and had chaired theirConference in St Petersburg at that time. Mr Pettersson asked MsPivnenko about her experience in the BSPC, what had been par-ticularly important during her presidency and the whole time shehad been engaged in this work. He noted that she had also partici-pated as BSPC president in the 9th Baltic Sea State Summit of theHeads of Government 2012 in Stralsund. Knowing that Ms Piv-nenko had loads of things to share, he yielded the screen to her.Address by Valentina Pivnenko, MP, State Dumaof the Russian Federation, Former President of theBSPCMs Valentina Pivnenko began by expressing her gratitude to her col-leagues for the fact that they had been able to work together for somany years under such good conditions with such good contacts andcooperation, trying to understand one another so well. She hadstarted working in the BSPC when she had been in Karelia, the headCeremonial Session 91Valentina Pivnenko, MP, State Duma of the Russian Federation, For-mer President of the BSPCof the state embassy there. That, she conceded, was going back a bit.Then there was the Baltic Parliamentary Delegation which didn’t justhave representatives of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federa-tion but also lots of regional parliaments, such as the Karelia Repub-lic – where she was from and from where she was speaking. Otherswere the legislative assembly Mr Shandalovich was representing,along with Kaliningrad and St Petersburg. Those were the represent-ative regions. The experience of her parliamentary delegations hadbeen very important training for the international community.30 years of the BSPC had now passed. Since 1991, there had beenso many changes – not least in her country. The Soviet Union hadcollapsed, and Russia had become a state in its own right during thistime. The parliament of the Russian Federation had been elected ashad been the State Duma and the Federation Assembly. These devel-opments had been intrinsically linked with these changes. They hadbeen working on strategies for the Baltic Sea region – there hadbeen the EU Strategy for their partners, while for the Russian side,it had been the Strategy for the North-Eastern Federal Region.These two strategies had not been contradictions in terms. In cer-tain ways, they had very much augmented one another. That waswhat they were implementing because of their constitution andtheir participation had always been based on who had been elected.Of course, they had always focused on the issues that they were try-ing to solve – sustainable development of the Baltic Sea region hadbeen very important, as had been the prosperity of the inhabitantsliving on its shores, pressing questions of the environment, mari-time transport. It had not just been about protecting the environ-ment but also protecting their sea and the regions on its shores.92 Ceremonial SessionAlthough they had often held different opinions within the BSPC,represented different positions and sometimes had understood eachother more and sometimes less, Ms Pivnenko considered it remark-able that throughout the whole time, they had retained this parlia-mentary stability, this understanding one another and support forone another – listening to one another. This had really been therefrom the beginning. Ms Pivnenko emphasised that in 2012, whenshe had been president of the BSPC, there had been an important“training time”, so to speak. There had been eleven heads of state ofthe Baltic Sea region who had discussed a very important agenda,and she as president of their Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conferencehad been representing the organisation at that event. Topics hadconcerned energy industries as well as their security and develop-ment. Moreover, the question of the aging demographics in Europehad been debated – all important issues that had remained vital andhad not disappeared from the agenda. What had surprised Ms Piv-nenko the most then had been the good, constructive relationshipsof the heads of state and government of the Baltic Sea states, bothtowards their parliamentary organisation and towards the RussianFederation as well. She highlighted this because at that time, thequestion of dissolving the visa regime between the EU and the Rus-sian Federation had been in the air. Chancellor Merkel at the timehad put this issue on the agenda. It had not even been the initiativeof the Russian side but that of industry – not just from Germanybut from other countries as well. Since 2014, though, she was afraidthat relations had deteriorated in this regard.There was no acceptance for the fact that Crimea was now Russianagain, as had been mentioned earlier at the Conference. Ms Piv-nenko noted that, from the point of view of a Russian parliamentar-ian, she wished to make the following comments: They had not for-gotten that sixty years earlier, Mr Khrushchev, who had been thehead communist of the Soviet Union, had just given away a sectionof Russian territory to Ukraine. No-one had minded at the time.No-one had ratified this document which would have been neces-sary to make it legal, and the majority of the Russian-speaking pop-ulation had carried out a referendum when the Soviet Union haddissolved. The question of the referendum had been about thereturn of Crimea to the Russian Federation, and for various politi-cal reasons, this had been rejected at the time. Talking so muchabout democracy and democratic processes at this Conference, MsPivnenko challenged them to ask themselves what democracy was.Actually, democracy was the will of the people. The will of the peo-ple had to be expressed. When the parliament of Crimea had spo-ken in favour of joining Russia, that hadn’t just happened out of theblue, Ms Pivnenko stated. Her side felt that what had happened hadCeremonial Session 93been based on the law. By the constitution of the Russian Federa-tion, Crimea would remain Russian, always. For them, there was aline under this development. It was no longer up for discussion. In2008, at the parliamentary conference in Poland, Russia had beenaccused of triggering a military conflict with Georgia, even attack-ing Georgia at that time. Back then, Ms Pivnenko had said that thesituation had not been as it had been presented. Three years later,international institutions had confirmed that Russia had notattacked Georgia in this conflict. No-one had actually gone to thetrouble of apologising to Russia about this. Now they were talkingabout Belarus, and Ms Pivnenko reminded her colleagues that morethan fifteen years earlier, the BSPC had discussed on their agendawhether or not they should invite Belarus to join the BSPC, at leastas an observer. This had always been rejected. Now, they were tryingto teach Belarus democracy, but it was an independent country.Regarding Ukraine, Ms Pivnenko said that her colleagues might notlike it, but they were honest people. If Russia had waged a war inUkraine, then she called on her colleagues to think of Syria. Russiawould have created order there, the way they had done in Syria.With conviction, she insisted that time would tell that Russia hadbeen on the right side of history and that would clarify their differ-ent views. She thought that they would achieve a consensus then.The speaker further believed that this would be good for theirnations, for their peoples. They would work together again and sup-port one another again.Ms Pivnenko underlined that all of them were doomed to keep thepeace and to try to protect their people and the world from thingslike COVID-19 and all of the other challenges that they were fac-ing, the ones they were discussing on their agenda and in their res-olutions. These were not just approved by the Baltic Sea states. Theywere another example of the cooperation that they had with othercountries, for example the Black Sea states were also interested inworking together with the Baltic Sea parliamentarians because all ofthem were confronting similar problems. Who, if not the parlia-mentarians, could go on to think about the safety of their childrenand posterity, the generations to come, their nations – to ensurethat they had peace and stability and could make progress and solvethe problems that they had been elected to solve.Ms Pivnenko went on to note that, in Germany, there was an electioncoming up. She noted that she was aware that Mr Schraps was run-ning as candidate. The speaker herself was running as well as was hercolleague Mr Elissan Shandalovich, who was sitting next to her. Theyhad to stand the test ahead of them, but they also had to continuetheir work, and they could not allow a standstill. The trouble was that94 Ceremonial Sessionsometimes, there was sunny weather, sometimes cloudy weather, butthe sunshine would always come through the clouds in the end, shereminded her audience. Ms Pivnenko hoped that the sun wouldalways shine on the Baltic Sea states, that they would always havesunny weather and would not have to go through the climate-relatedmeteorological dramas that had been experienced recently. She fur-ther hoped that they would be able to meet in person again, go for abeer and discuss everything the way they always had.Mr Jörgen Pettersson thanked Ms Pivnenko, mentioning that it wasinteresting to listen to her. He noted that there was one thing thathad become clear to him over the years of working for the BSPC:Democracy always meant that there were different views on differ-ent things.Ms Carola Veit joined Mr Pettersson in thanking Ms Pivnenko. Thishad been a good example of controversial positions that did notnecessarily lead to conflicts in this organisation. They could daretalk about almost everything of concern to them which Ms Veitconsidered a great treasure. She wished the best to everyone runningfor new mandates in their respective parliaments.She announced the next guest, somebody who had been active inthe BSPC for the longest time among the BSPC presidents: FranzThönnes. He had been the head of the delegation of the GermanBundestag to the BSPC for almost two decades, having held theBSPC presidency from 2006 – 2007 and also having been highlyactive in the BSPC during his time as parliamentary state secretary.He had been chair of a working group and BSPC Rapporteur. MsVeit noted that Mr Thönnes had asked her to the join the BSPC 10years ago. He had told her that this cooperation was characterisedby trust, mutual understanding, long-standing friendships, mutualhuman appreciation and, very appropriately, cheerfulness andworking together. He had been right, she pointed out as that waswhat one found at the BSPC. She went on to explain that MrThönnes was still active in the organisation that had been fullyimplemented during his time at the BSPC: the Baltic Sea LabourForum. Many still remembered his keynote address five years earlierin Riga at the 25th anniversary of the BSPC but also his personalfarewell words in Hamburg in 2017. As all her colleagues, Ms Veitwas looking forward to Mr Thönnes’ review of the BSPC’s work.Ceremonial Session 95Address by Mr Franz Thönnes,Former President of the BSPCMr Franz Thönnes, Former President of the BSPCMr Franz Thönnes thanked Ms Veit, Mr Pettersson as well as theentire Standing Committee for inviting him to come and speak,allowing him to be involved in the 30th BSPC anniversary session.It was a wonderful anniversary, but he hastened to add that it wasn’tthe only anniversary that they were able to celebrate on that day. AsMs Veit had rightly mentioned, the Baltic Sea Labour Forum was infact celebrating its ten-year anniversary. Both of these institutionswere the result of their very sustainable cooperation. That, really,was what they should be celebrating on this day, the fact that after30 years of political common ground, political differences and occa-sionally political eruptions, they were still together and were stillworking towards good neighbourliness in the Baltic Sea region anda good and prosperous future of the Baltic Sea region.Listening to Ms Pivnenko’s speak earlier on, Mr Thönnes wished tofocus on the Baltic Sea region in his area. He also wanted to talkabout the conflicts that they’d had.Following the fall of the Iron Curtain, on 7-9 January 1991 repre-sentatives of the national and regional parliaments in all countriesbordering the Baltic met in Helsinki for the first time on the invita-tion of the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, Kalevi Sorsa. Theparliamentarians at that time had decided they wished to resolveconflicts peacefully and did not want armed conflicts of any kindbut rather preserve the sovereignty of the territories. This was whathad kept Europe stable and had maintained the peace in Europe.Mr Thönnes believed the BSPC should stick to that approach:96 Ceremonial SessionDespite the various challenges the member parliaments were facing,they should not seek for any new ways of dealing with one another.Mutual conversation was what had kept the BSPC together.Belarus was an example of this process as the BSPC had discussedthe sustainability of progress with Belarusian parliamentariansregarding them joining the BSPC. As a result of those conversa-tions, the BSPC had decided against accepting Belarus as a BSPCmember or observer. They had listened to a lot of statements aboutprogress but could not tell if said progress had truly been sustaina-ble. Unfortunately, the BSPC had been right to reject Belarus: Pro-gress had not proved sustainable. The situation in Belarus had devel-oped in such a way that one could hardly talk about a democracythere. There had been falsified elections, and it truly was the casethat in the Belarusian system, only one person mattered, and civilresistance had been combatted violently. That was not acceptablefor the BSPC.Mr Thönnes went on to mention that they sometimes took differ-ent views in the BSPC. That would always be the case. Nevertheless,they had focussed on their work. He believed they could be proudof what they had achieved. He was thinking of the fact that theBSPC had been talking about climate protection far in advance ofmany others. It was down to the BSPC, in his view, that maritimeshipping in the Baltic Sea was safer than it had been. The BSPC hadbeen among the first – particularly Ms Christine Gestrin – to pur-sue the aim of having a clean Baltic Sea. They had succeeded inreducing pollution in the Baltic Sea. They had called for clearer reg-ulations on dumping into the Baltic Sea from passenger ships. All ofthis had been implemented by this point. The BSPC had workedwithin the EU Baltic Sea Strategy to set demarcation lines. Onecould almost say the Baltic Sea parliamentarians could take thecredit for there being an EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, asthere had been since 2009. Many forms of cooperation and of doingbusiness – the companies, the trade unions, the universities weretwinned with one another. As an example, he mentioned St Peters-burg where the BSPC had in 2012 concluded a guarantee for youngpeople, declaring that after finishing school, they did not have to beunemployed for a long time. Instead, they should receive a trainingplace. That was something that the European Parliament and theCommission had confirmed as well in 2016. The BSPC had saidthat they needed a Baltic Sea Youth Forum. At this very conference,representatives from that forum were integrated into the process.Moreover, it was quite appropriate to refer to the example of theBaltic Sea Labour Forum. That had to do with the priority areas ofCeremonial Session 97Mr Thönnes’ own working life and was proof for him that parlia-mentarians in the BSPC could indeed get things going internation-ally. In 2007, the BSPC had had a working group on Labour andSocial Security. They had been discussing people living in one coun-try and commuting across the border to another, and they had beenspeaking about the problems of the youth in the Baltic Sea area.Afterwards, in 2009, the Baltic Sea Labour Network had been putinto place, as a result of that working group. In 2011 then, the Bal-tic Sea Labour Forum had emerged from this – an institution with30 member organisations, 17 trade unions, 11 employers’ associa-tions, international organisations. This work was being continued.They had spoken about youth unemployment, people commutingacross borders. The high point in his view had occurred in 2016when the BSPC had passed on recommendations to the Council ofBaltic Sea States (CBSS). For the first time in the history of theCBSS, the BSPC had been invited to speak with the labour minis-ters. The Baltic Sea parliamentarians had been present at this table,and they had concluded agreements on how they could worktogether better in the area of employment, particularly in combat-ting youth unemployment, and labour market research – evenaddressing the question of what demographic change meant for thelabour market, for employment and for their lives as people weregrowing older. Projects springing from that meeting were doingwork in the areas of lifelong learning, working actively into old age,and carrying out research. These were some of the things that theBaltic Sea Labour Forum was looking into. Mr Thönnes pointedout that this was an example of working on the details in order toaffect the bigger picture. The conference and the participants of theBSPC had been invited to take part in government meetings on anequal footing, he underlined again, just as Ms Pivnenko had men-tioned regarding Stralsund.All of this was showing to Mr Thönnes that parliamentarians couldachieve something. He told the attendees, when they got homeand someone asked them what they had done at the Baltic Sea Par-liamentary Conference, they could answer what the BSPC hadachieved. They knew what they had done and what work they hadput into it. This could give them strength for the future as well.Here, he referred to Prof Jānis Vucāns who had said that the firstthing they had needed to achieve in the Baltic Sea region was peace,the next was constant dialogue – talking to one another about theirproblems -, and the third was ensuring that the environmentaround them was safer. That was the basis of life around the BalticSea. In that regard, the work of the BSPC Rapporteur on Sea-Dumped Ammunitions, Mr Peter Stein, was important, for every-one who was involved in removing sea-dumped ammunitions and98 Ceremonial Sessionunexploded ordnance on the seabed. Then there was the youthwho were involved, creating perspectives – because it was theirfuture that had to be protected right at this point. Climate protec-tion was important as well. Equally of value was involving NGOs.That could be achieved through working groups, so they did nothave to deal with that at the conferences that much. Mr Thönnesbelieved that this forum of the Baltic Sea parliamentarians wasexemplary for many regions in the world, and he thought that thesustainability of the peace that they had enjoyed in the area wasassociated with their work in the BSPC. Every single one of theparliamentarians could be proud of that. What was important wasthat what they decided here was something that they had to takehome and got their governments to implement. That meant notonly their own parliamentary group but also in collaboration withothers that they were working with, despite possible opposition. Itwas not enough to just agree with everything at the conference andthen wait until Secretary General Bodo Bahr’s declaration arrived,declaring how far they had got with implementation. Mr Thönnesinsisted that anyone in support of the final resolution of a confer-ence was committing to taking it home and working towards ful-filling it when they got there. That was parliamentarianism as itlived and breathed.Mr Thönnes said thank you to anyone who had helped them –including all of the secretary generals. Looking back to his time, hewished to thank Bodo Bahr but also all the presidents. In addition,he offered his gratitude to the CBSS, adding that without Ms DariaAkhutina, they wouldn’t have been able to make such progressregarding the Baltic Sea Labour Forum. Without the support of MrBernd Hemingway, for example, that would also not have been pos-sible. Mr Thönnes believed it became clear that the BSPC could notdo it on their own, and for that reason, he said thank you again. Hepointed out that some countries believed they could solve all theirproblems on their own, within their borders. Mr Thönnes was cau-tious not to mention a name but intimated that it was often associ-ated with the word “first” following it. That, he underlined, was notthe way forward. He was convinced of the need to work together, tocollaborate, and that was what could be found in organisations likethe BSPC.They needed each other in this world, he emphasised. Otherwise,they would not make much progress.He thanked his audience, noting that they might have broughtsomething from the past into the present and would carry it on tothe future. With that, he concluded his presentation.Ceremonial Session 99Session Moderator Carola Veit thanked him for his warm words andtaking his listeners through the past 30 years again, reviewing it. Shenoted that all of them felt a little bit praised by his words, repeatingher gratitude to Mr Thönnes for his work.She went on to introduce the contribution by the former BSPCpresident, Ms Christina Gestrin, who had also taken part in theConference in Mariehamn in 2018 as an expert. Ms Veit noted thatthe organisers had not been certain if they could manage all thecontributions in their available time.Therefore they had asked MsGestrin to provide a video message which was then presented.Video Message by Ms Christina Gestrin,Former BSPC PresidentMs Christina Gestrin began by thanking the BSPC for inviting herto speak at the ceremonial session in honour of the 30th BSPC. Tenyears earlier, they had celebrated the 20th anniversary in Helsinki,and she had had the privilege of chairing the BSPC for three yearsbetween 2008 and at the Conference in Helsinki in 2011. Afterthat, she had taken part in the BSPC activities as rapporteur oneutrophication, as an observer to HELCOM and as a representativeof the Finnish parliament in Standing Committee meetings until2015 when her last term as parliamentarian had ended.During the period when she had been involved in the BSPC’s work,quite a few special working groups had been established, focusing onsolving common challenges among the Baltic Sea countries. They hadMs Christina Gestrin, Former BSPC President100 Ceremonial Sessionhad working groups on maritime safety, eutrophication, energy effi-ciency and climate change as well as civil security and trafficking, justto mention a few. These issues were still highly topical to this day inthe Baltic Sea region, Ms Gestrin underlined. Long-term politicalactions, persistence and patience were necessary qualities for the workof the BSPC. She was grateful that she had had the opportunity toinfluence the regional development in the BSPC, through the organ-isation, and for the time together with the BSPC family. Through thework of the Standing Committee, she had learned a lot about peopleand politics in all parts of the Baltic Sea region. She had believed then– and still did so today – that an important dimension of the work ofthe BSPC was to get to know each other and deepen their under-standing of each other’s cultures and political lives.Ten years earlier, at that BSPC Conference, the overall opinion hadbeen that quite remarkable developments had taken place in theBaltic Sea region since the first Conference in Helsinki in 1991. Themost promising changes had been in the areas of peace, democracyand in environmental cooperation. However, it had been stated bythe parliamentarians that a lot of challenges remained. The positivedevelopment of the cooperation in the Baltic Sea region had contin-ued for more than twenty years. In 2014, diplomatic and politicalcrises had followed after the Russian annexation of Crimea withimplications on the political, economic and environmental collabo-ration in the region. The challenges in the Baltic Sea region, MsGestrin explained, were complex and had different consequencesfor different countries. Parliamentarians had a task and mandatefrom the people to meet the challenges of their region. That wasexactly why a forum like the BSPC was so important and especiallyduring politically difficult times. Despite the deep crises and con-flicts between parts of the Baltic Sea region – that they, unfortu-nately, were still experiencing to this day –, the BSPC had managedto provide an arena where parliamentarians had continued to meetand discuss all sorts of sensitive issues.Ms Gestrin stated her conviction that the BSPC would continue toplay an important role as promoter of democratic values and con-structive political processes and for a sustainable development inthe region for the benefit of the Baltic Sea region and its citizens formany years yet to come. She wished the BSPC and each one of theattendees all the best in the future.Ms Carola Veit thanked Ms Gestrin for these insights, noting thatMs Gestrin had been the first BSPC president that Ms Veit hadCeremonial Session 101come to know in 2011. As early as back then, it had been com-pletely normal for a woman to chair the BSPC. That had been nor-mal and would always remain a normal part of their work together.She noted that Mr Pettersson had had to board the plane to Copen-hagen and said his good-byes off screen. Ms Veit thanked him forthe co-moderation and his personal input from his BSPC presi-dency.She announced that they would now like to hear and integrate intothis panel the voice of the youth, finally getting into the future side.Among them was Mr Jonas Faergeman from Denmark who hadalready contributed to earlier sessions. He had taken part in the Bal-tic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum on the previous Saturday. Thathad been a back-to-back event to the present Conference. Ms Veitnoted that Mr Faergeman had already told them that there hadbeen very exciting discussions about fundamental issues and chal-lenges at the forum. She asked him if he as a representative of theforum had any special expectations of the parliamentarians for thefuture and what opportunities he saw to get involved in the BSPCwork in the future.Address by Mr Jonas Faergeman, Representative ofthe Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth ForumMr Jonas Faergeman said that it was always fun to be part of a con-ference that celebrated a great number of years, more years than heMr Jonas Faergeman, Representative of the Baltic Sea ParliamentaryYouth Forum102 Ceremonial Sessionhad existed. He noted that he was only in his twenties even thoughhe had the hair of a fifty-five-year old, but that was just genes; hecould not help that.Regarding what had been discussed at the Youth Forum on Satur-day, most of that had already been explained very well by Ms Ciokand Mr Pintilie in an earlier session. Therefore, he would insteadadd something to that because there had been several sessions at theforum and finish by proposing a general consensus of the youth thathe felt confident in claiming. First, a session had considered digiti-sation and respective safety. The aspect discussed the most had beensocial media and the way that it was being used today, not only ona personal but also on a political level. Special emphasis had beengiven to the latter. Social media had also been mentioned by severalparliamentarians and panellists at the Conference. Unfortunately,he opined, it had been mentioned as a tool for politicians to act asa politician; basically, the politicians’ understanding of social mediawas that of a politician. That was completely fine as it was a tool thatthey used. However, this proved a lack of a broader understandingof what social media entailed for the general public and the nega-tives that this brought with it. He suggested that any parliamentar-ian listening to him right now and who cared about social mediashould confer with experts in the field and lead with that knowl-edge. Specifically, the young people at the forum had talked aboutpolarisation being a greater issue in social media. People who didnot have to look the person they disagreed with in the face had atendency to probably be a little bit more aggressive and adamantabout their disagreement. There had been a significant increase ingroups which had this idea of in-groups and out-groups – essen-tially that if you did not belong to the group that one side had cre-ated, you were not only in a different group but just wrong. Emo-tionally, the others were not just wrong but also bad persons. Thisnot only extended to a way of conducting oneself on a social levelbetween people but also in political groups. Politicians were notsolely responsible for this, but they should be aware of the fanbasethat they had. In Mr Faergeman’s personal opinion, this was a fairway of describing how some politicians ran their jobs.Aside from this major focus, the forum had considered a generalidea of what young people would want. It was an interesting aspectto him as this was not the first conference of its kind that he hadattended. He had also participated in one in Åland in 2018 and inthe COP a few times before, always speaking on behalf of the youthwhich he took much pleasure in. Unfortunately, he was alwaysasked this question and gave the same answer every time. The youngpeople just wanted politicians to do their job. They had alreadyCeremonial Session 103been elected to do specific things. If they were unable to do thosethings, people would try to elect better people – if not run for them-selves. It was somewhat sad that they were supposed to think thatnow the youth had uncovered the general issues that had beenknown about for decades. He was not saying this to talk down to hislisteners as that would not only be wrong per se but also because hewas aware of the competencies of his audience. Nevertheless, therewas the issue of politicians acting as if they had only now woken upto the idea of what the youth – or the public – wanted. There wasthis idea now that the youth had been more integrated than it hadever been, which he conceded was partly true. The issue was thatthere should be more to it than just participation. The young peo-ple of today were screaming the same things that the young peoplebefore them had been screaming – and probably people older thanthem. These were not just youth issues. They were told that nowthings would change with the 2050 agreements – or the 2030 goals.He said he was addressing the politicians – who had been in thisfield for a long time – very humbly but also sternly. In 1987, therehad been the first environmental reports that did not end up doinganything. Then there had been the Kyoto Protocol in the 1990swhich hadn’t ended up doing anything either. In the 2000s, therehad been the first COPs. These did not do anything, either. Now,there was the Paris Agreement, and he noted that the Baltic Searegion was not living up to it the best. That didn’t do anything.Now, there was the promise that within the next ten or nine years,most of those problems would be solved. Mr Faergeman reiteratedthat he had been asked what the youth wanted. What they wantedwere simply the things that they had been promised since beforethey had been born. They were very much eager to help and alsocompetent and able to help, but the biggest part was for politiciansto simply deliver what they had promised. He further underlinedhow important it was to act very aggressively when it came to cli-mate change. It was not only damaging the young people’s futurebut the future of the human species and the way that they saw his-tory as well as the way they were acting as people.Session Moderator Carola Veit thanked Mr Faergeman for puttingthis into clear words again, as he had done before. In her view, it wasthe best way to talk to politicians because they would not get themessage otherwise. She thanked him for reminding them oncemore of their obligations to take on the young people’s demandsand that this was a task that had to be accomplished. Ms Veit notedthat he had mentioned earlier that politicians had proved with the104 Ceremonial Sessionresponse to the COVID-19 pandemic that they could tackle seriousproblems quickly. The question was why there was no response ofsimilar speed to climate change. She further pointed out that MrFaergeman and his fellow representatives had done an excellent jobof elaborating recommendations for their negotiations. The parlia-mentarians would of course look at the results and take them intoaccount in their future work. As Mr Thönnes had said, it was theduty of parliamentarians to bring these issues to their respectivegovernments and also enforce their execution rather than simplywriting them down. The contribution by Mr Faergeman was veryfruitful for the BSPC.Now they were coming to the end of the ceremonial session. Shethanked all participants for their insights and reflections as well assuggestions for the future. Ms Veit invited anyone interested inlearning more about their work to read the BSPC publication on 30years of their work that had been published on this day. In thisregard, she voiced her gratitude to Secretary General Bodo Bahr forbringing all of that information together. It was a reflection of thepast that was worth taking the time to look at. The publication con-tained a lot of valuable information and reflections on the parlia-mentary dimension of cooperation in the Baltic Sea region in thepast, the present and hopefully the future as well.With that, she brought the ceremonial session in honour of the 30thanniversary of the BSPC to an end.Fourth Session 105FOURTH SESSIONAddresses and ReportsChair: Mr Jarosław Wałęsa, MP, PolandSession chair Mr Jarosław Wałęsa, MP from Poland, thanked MsVeit and opened the fourth session of this very intense schedule. Henoted he was honoured to be a chair in this digital discussion, add-ing that this was his first time doing so. There was a challenging taskahead of them with many interesting speakers. He introduced thefirst speaker, Mr Pedro Roque, Vice-President and President Emer-itus of the Parliamentarian Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM).Mr Wałęsa said that the wide participation of the PAM at the BSPCConference underlined how much of their cooperation had intensi-fied in the recent past. As mentioned in the opening statement,both organisations had agreed to sign a Memorandum of Under-standing that autumn, and that would further deepen the coopera-tion between them.Address by Mr Pedro Roque, Vice-President andPresident Emeritus of the Parliamentary Assembly ofthe Mediterranean (PAM)Mr Pedro Roque said it was a pleasure for him to address the BSPCon this day on behalf of the PAM. He thanked President PyryNiemi and Secretary General Bodo Bahr for inviting the parliamen-tarian assembly he represented once again to this event. The BSPC106 Fourth SessionMr Pedro Roque, Vice-President and President Emeritus of theParliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM)and the PAM shared a history of collaboration, and the latter appre-ciated the active participation of the former’s delegates in their con-ferences in recent months and years. He strongly believed that inter-regional parliamentary exchange was very helpful to get a variety ofbeneficial perspectives and implement global legislative practicesthat could help them face common challenges. In this regard, hewished to commend their organisations for having finalised a justMemorandum of Understanding which they hoped to sign in per-son at the next opportunity, probably at the upcoming PAM Bureaumeeting in Rome the following November.Mr Roque said that the COVID-19 crisis had put unprecedentedpressures on their societies. Due to the vaccination process, at last,they were seeing the first signs of improvement. According to thelatest figures of the OECD, international trade had reached a newheight in the past months. This was encouraging, he underlined.However, vital segments of their economies, such as the tourist sec-tor, were still far from fully recovered. They, as parliamentarians,had the essential role of assisting their governments towards effec-tive strategies and corrective actions. At the Parliamentary Assemblyof the Mediterranean, they had been successful in creating synergiesand opportunities for a more prosperous and sustainable future forall. Most recently, their assembly had joined forces with the Parlia-mentary Assembly of the Turkish-speaking Countries, TURKPA,and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Coop-eration, PABSEC, to organise a high-level conference on building aresilient economic recovery. Three key elements had emerged fromthis meeting. It was necessary to implement an effective vaccineroll-out also through international solidarity. Financial cooperationFourth Session 107had to be instituted faster. Finally, their investments had to bedirected towards a green and digital transition of their economies.Next October, they would meet again in Antalya to resume thisconversation, and he was looking forward to the contributions fromthe BSPC on that occasion.Climate change had become a reality, Mr Roque pointed out, muchfaster than all scenarios had predicted. They had also seen the tragicimages of floods and summer wildfires across Europe and NorthAfrica. Resolute full-scale political commitments could not waitany longer. Through this year, climate action had been a crucial ele-ment of their activities. They had produced two sets of policy rec-ommendations at their last plenary session, one on environmentalgovernance and one on green recovery strategies. The PAM hadcontributed to the G20 session on energy and climate, and they hadstrengthened their cooperation with the United Nations Environ-mental Programme. Currently, the PAM were in full preparation tobring the voice of their parliaments to the upcoming COP26 inGlasgow. Mr Roque was happy to see that their partner parliamen-tarians in the Baltic Sea region were likewise committed to address-ing climate change. The Mediterranean also remained an epicentrefor mass flows of economic migrants and asylum seekers. TheAfghan crisis, he cautioned, would expand the scope of this emer-gency. He strongly believed that their interparliamentary workcould contribute to effectively responding to these challenges.Mr Jarosław Wałęsa thanked Mr Roque very much for his statementand moved on to the next speaker, Secretary General Hajiyev of theParliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation(PABSEC). As the BSPC President Pyry Niemi had already men-tioned in his opening statement, the BSPC had enjoyed a particu-larly close relationship with PABSEC for many years which hadbeen clearly underscored by two joint meetings of the organisations’Standing Committees in the course of which a Memorandum ofUnderstanding had been signed. As such, Mr Wałęsa welcomedProf Hajiyev to the Conference.108 Fourth SessionAddress by Mr Asaf Hajiyev, PABSEC SecretaryGeneralMr Asaf Hajiyev said it was an honour and privilege for him toaddress the BSPC. He relayed the regards from PABSEC to theBSPC, congratulating the latter on their thirty-year anniversary andwishing them good health. In 2023, PABSEC would celebrate itsown thirties anniversary, and he hoped the BSPC would join theircelebration.Mr Hajiyev noted the significance of the regional inter-parliamen-tary organizations in world politics and underlined that the parlia-mentary component of interstate relations is becoming an increas-ingly important factor in resolving urgent problems. The PABSECSecretary General informed about the current activities of the PAB-SEC and welcomed the strengthening of cooperation between thePABSEC and the BSPC also through the joint events. Mr. Hajiyevfurthermore spoke about the very topical problem of refugees,which became a concern for the European countries, especiallytoday, in the context of the events in Afghanistan. There were 80million refugees in the world at the present, meaning that of every-one hundred people in the world, one of them was a refugee. In theBlack Sea region, in countries like Turkey or Azerbaijan, there wasone refugee to every ten people, Mr Hajiyev pointed out. The mostrecent situation in Afghanistan would create another wave of refu-gees. There were several ways of protection from this issue, forinstance to build big walls and say, Okay, you can solve your prob-lems by yourselves. That, though, was not a feasible solution becausethese people were victims of wars between different groups and dif-ferent political movements. So, altogether, he believed that all par-Mr Asaf Hajiyev, PABSEC Secretary GeneralFourth Session 109liamentary assemblies should jointly prepare some legislation toinstitute normal standard lives for people who would arrive in theirregion – but also those who would not come to their region. Thiswas a very crucial problem for all of Europe. From the Black Searegion, the refugees were moving in different directions. During thelast years, Turkey had received four million refugees. To this day, thedamage to the world economy by the refugee problem was esti-mated at 500 billion dollars. That, he underlined, equalled half atrillion dollars and asked his audience if they could imagine a sumlike that. He said that in the 21st century, people should not beabandoned to their fate and expressed the hope that all countries inthe world, including the countries of the Black Sea and Balticregions, unite their capabilities and efforts for the solution of thaturgent matter.He ended by wishing all of them peace, security and prosperity. TheBlack Sea and the Baltic Sea areas should not be divided as eachregion’s prosperity depended on the other. He wished all the attend-ees good health and success.Mr Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked Mr Hajiyev very much for his speech,adding that had been very important and interesting.He moved on to the next speaker, Ambassador Poznański of theCBSS Secretariat. Mr Wałęsa was happy that the BSPC had beenworking more and more closely with the CBSS Secretariat for manyyears, for which reason he was delighted to see the CBSS Secretariatparticipate in this BSPC Conference.Address by Ambassador Grzegorz Marek Poznański,Director General of the Council of the Baltic SeaStates SecretariatAmbassador Grzegorz Poznański gave his wholehearted congratula-tions on the 30th anniversary of the Baltic parliamentary coopera-tion. In the CBSS, they would celebrate 30 years in the comingyear. He hoped that that would be another good occasion to cele-brate. As had been mentioned many times on that day, the BSPCand the CBSS partnership was very strong. They inspired each otherand worked with each other. Parliamentarians, governments, localauthorities, international organisations, civil society, academia,110 Fourth SessionAmbassador Grzegorz Marek Poznański, Director General of theCouncil of the Baltic Sea States Secretariatindustry and youth – they were all responsible for the future of theBaltic Sea region. And they all had important roles to play. As men-tioned by the previous CBSS chair Lithuania and current chairNorway, namely through the Norwegian Minister of ForeignAffairs, the CBSS Ministerial Meeting had adopted in June theVision for the Baltic Sea Region by 2030, the so-called Vilnius IIDeclaration. The CBSS Action Plan for the years 2021 and 2025had also been endorsed. It was clear that current challenges couldnot wait. In that regard, he listed as examples building a climate-re-silient, sustainable and prosperous region, building a safer and moresecure region and nurturing their specific regional identity – whichshould help them in being united in dealing with these challenges.Science-based policies were indispensable along with well informedand involved societies and citizens in order to have a democracythat really worked. A democracy which efficiently dealt with thechallenges mentioned above. The CBSS was working with the sci-entific communities around their region, especially with the BalticScience Network, and through the implementation of the CBSSscience research and innovation agenda. Moreover, they were con-ducting many educational projects. They also worked hard, togetherwith their partners such as the Baltic Sea States Subregional Coop-eration (BSSSC) or the Union of the Baltic Cities, on localisingbroad policies and strategies, making them work at the subregionaland local levels. The CBSS was proud to assist the youth voice inbeing heard, here in the BSPC and in other Baltic forums. Ambas-sador Poznański was very happy that the CBSS Youth Platform hadproved once again to be an important tool in making the youngpeople’s voice strong and further mobilising the governments toFourth Session 111take concrete actions. Only together, all countries and regionsaround the Baltic Sea, politicians, experts, scientists, local activists,youth and many others, could be built collaboration and trust.These, he emphasised, were so necessary to be efficient vis-à-vis cur-rent challenges. The coming decade, by 2030, had to be the decadeof action. Now was the time to act, and it was necessary to acttogether to make this region a better place to live for future genera-tions.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa thanked the ambassador for hisspeech as well as for the great and close cooperation from the CBSSside for the BSPC work, in particular regarding the Baltic Sea Par-liamentary Youth Forum on the previous Saturday.He moved on to the next speaker, representing another close collab-oration of the BSPC, namely with the Baltic Sea States SubregionalCooperation. In the BSPC resolution of the present year, they alsosupported a special concern of the BSSSC in their cultural field.The next speaker was Mr Mieczysław Struk, the chairman of theBSSSC, who was also the Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship.He had not been able to attend in person but had provided a videomessage.Video Message by Mr Mieczysław Struk, Chairmanof the Baltic Sea States Subregional, Cooperation,BSSSC, Marshal of the Pomorskie VoivodeshipMr Mieczysław Struk thanked President Niemi for inviting theBSSSC to speak at this honourable gathering. It was a great pleasureto be here for the second time in his capacity as the chairman of theBSPC’s partner organisation. The BSSSC was a network intendedto voice the interests of the regions as well as to debate and lobby forissues most urgent to them. It supported and initiated bottom-upcooperation and organised activities against the background of theEuropean Union’s Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, the Sustaina-ble Development Goals, the Baltic 2030 Action Plan, the HEL-COM Baltic Sea Action Plan, the Northern Dimension EuropeanGreen Deal and Next Generation EU. An important recovery facil-ity to mention just the key policies and visions. The BSSSC alsoplanned to take an active part in the conference on the future ofEurope, to be an important part of this region.112 Fourth SessionMr Mieczysław Struk, Chairman of the Baltic Sea States Subregional,Cooperation, BSSSC, Marshal of the Pomorskie VoivodeshipIn the previous year, he had mentioned a few of the challenges all ofthem were facing these days and which still occupied their dailyattention. Now, he could only repeat and strongly advocate for evenstronger engagement and togetherness on all governance levels intheir Baltic Sea family. These challenges did not get easier or lesscomplicated – just the opposite. Having a nearly 30-year historybehind them, the BSSSC could see what had already been accom-plished and how much still needed to be done to maintain the verybasic democratic value rooted in the Baltic Sea region and Europeas it was now. Public health and security, economic challenges, theclimate crisis, migration – those had a much greater impact thanthey could have imagined even a few years earlier. Similarly, thelong-standing problem of ammunition, sunken ships and chemicalweapons abandoned in the Baltic Sea during the Second WorldWar, contemporary issues of water and waste management, over-production, aging societies, digitalisation, all sorts of cyber threatsand most of all a distinct decrease in social trust in traditional dem-ocratic mechanisms – they all called for an even more active andconcerted approach. It was necessary to further develop the civilsociety and act together to stop social disruption, the spread of fakenews, decrease populism intra- and internationally as well as revertthe loss of trust in science and logic.To address those challenges successfully, it was necessary to followgood governance principles: the rule of law and transparency,accountability and consensus. They needed solidarity in all aspects,with those in need, with future generations and with nature. Thatwas the core of what the BSSSC stood for. They had a lot in com-mon with the cornerstones of the current work of the BSPC, suchFourth Session 113as a focus on democracy, strong cooperation as well as environmen-tal sustainability and youth involvement. The BSSSC believed in acontinuous dialogue between generations of the BSR, especially lis-tening to the voices of the youth as they were at the core of socialand political change and the key to any region’s future economicsuccess. Their most important event, the big BSSSC annual Confer-ence, would be held this year in a hybrid form on 7 and 8 October2021, in the course of which they would focus on cooperation for amore sustainable Baltic Sea region and new opportunities ahead ofthem. They would discuss the role of the regions and cities as driv-ers of the green and digital transition and the developments withinthe programmes financing the support of sustainable cross-borderBaltic cooperation and the green transformation. They would alsoshowcase the best ideas and examples of such cooperation. Thiswould be done in the areas of culture and sustainability, supportinggreen business, green mobility and transport as well as the ecologi-cal situation of the Baltic Sea. In that respect, Mr Struk cordiallyinvited his friends from the BSPC to that conference and reiteratedhis gratitude for being invited as BSSSC representative to join the30th BSPC.On such an important anniversary, he wished the BSPC 30 moreconferences and many more, with close cooperation and neigh-bourliness in the BSR. He also passed along warm wishes from allBSSSC regions to keep up the great work done so far, being a forumfor political dialogue between Baltic Sea region parliamentarians, tocontinue raising awareness and further being a force to support thesustainable, environmental, social and economic development ofthe Baltic Sea region. They had so much in common as partnerorganisations, and he was very happy to acknowledge that their val-ues and goals were shared to such a great extent. Mr Struk sincerelyhoped their further cooperation would be a great example of thevalues they stood for and would be a vital part of the future of theBaltic Sea region.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa emphasised Mr Struk’s contribu-tion as a great message.He introduced the next speaker, Mr Jari Nakhanen, the President ofthe Baltic Sea Commission of the Conference of Peripheral andMaritime Regions (CPMR).114 Fourth SessionAddress by Mr Jari Nakhanen, President of the BalticSea Commission of the Conference of Peripheral andMaritime Regions (CPMR)Mr Jari Nakhanen thanked the BSPC on behalf of the Baltic SeaCommission for their kind invitation to attend this importantevent. He had very much appreciated the contributions and inspir-ing exchanges he had heard on this day. They illustrated the signifi-cant contribution the BSPC had provided for the development ofthe Baltic Sea region over the years. He congratulated the BSPC fortheir long-standing and successful parliamentary cooperation over30 years. Mr Nakhanen wished them all the best for the years ahead.A couple of days later, the Baltic Sea Commission would also cele-brate its 25-year anniversary of its original cooperation. They hadbeen working since 1996.Close political dialogue between local, regional and national actorswas crucial to achieving this common cause. The numerous chal-lenges that the Baltic Sea region was going through indeed requiredcooperation and open dialogue between all stakeholders. That waswhy he was delighted to be among the attendees of the Conferenceon this day. A few weeks earlier, the CPMR’s Executive Committeehad also been very pleased to discuss Baltic Sea issues and futurecooperation with BSPC President Niemi. This year, the Baltic SeaCommission had focused on contributing to the EU Green Dealagenda by fostering a lot of solutions in different sectors. He wishedto offer a glimpse at concrete examples of their policy work whichthey believed required strong, multi-level cooperation. Firstly, pro-moting a sustainable new economy in the Baltic Sea region. TheMr Jari Nakhanen, President of the Baltic Sea Commission of theConference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR)Fourth Session 115Baltic Sea was under a great deal of pressure, and a sustainable greeneconomy would help to improve the status through promoting sus-tainable fishing and green energy engines for boats. Mr Nakhanenpointed out that most of the CPMR’s members had coastal regionswhich had taken an active role in the development of the new EUsustainable blue economy, engaging directly with both the Euro-pean Parliament and the European Commission. Secondly, pro-moting connectivity within the Baltic Sea region. It was importantto develop good transport infrastructure and ensure further accessi-bility for all regions, including the most peripheral. The organisa-tion’s members were therefore following closely the implementationof the regulation by the European Union which was an opportunityto further connect the Baltic Sea region. Thirdly, facilitatingcross-border cooperation. The border closures due to the pandemichad been hard for people living in border regions, with negative sideeffects. It was important to preserve a strong cross-border coopera-tion, even in these troubled times. The new Interreg programmewas under preparation, Mr Nakhanen noted, and should focus onthe people-to-people projects as trust had been harmed these pastmonths. Fourthly, promoting a sustainable and healthy Baltic Searegion. The fight against climate change was the top priority. Byimplementing and sharing information on feasible solutions to pro-mote sustainable development, the CPMR was working towardsthe future. They hoped for future synergy with the BSPC WorkingGroup on Climate Change and Biodiversity to exchange moreknowledge and develop joined solutions.The key policy area that required ambitious and close cooperationbetween the region and the member states was the Arctic. He pointedout that what happened in the Arctic did not stay there but affectedall parts of the Baltic Sea region, the EU and the whole world. Thatwas something that was occasionally forgotten. The CPMR Baltic SeaCommission was following closely the development of the new EUArctic Policy, expected to be finished by the end of the current year.The Finnish contribution to the sustainable recovery of the Baltic Searegion was a key priority. The Next Generation EU Recovery Plan forEurope was a major opportunity for the Baltic Sea region and the EUas a whole to recover from the current crisis and create the conditionsfor sustainable, inclusive competitiveness.Mr Nakhanen concluded by saying that that the member regionsfor the CPMR Baltic Sea Commission were looking forward todeepening their cooperation with the BSPC. Together, as otherstakeholders had presented at the Conference, they foresaw greatthings for the Baltic Sea region and its citizens, ensuring no territorywas left behind.116 Fourth SessionMr Jarosław Wałęsa voiced his gratitude to Mr Nakhanen andmoved on to the very important subject of cooperation with theNGOs and civil society. First, there was Mr Anders Bergström, rep-resenting the Baltic Sea NGO Network.Address by Anders Bergström, Baltic Sea NGONetwork, Policy Area Coordinator, PA Education,Science and Social AffairsMr Anders Bergström thanked the BSPC for the invitation to speakat the Conference. He began by congratulating the BSPC on its30-year anniversary. This was a truly sustainable cooperationbetween parliaments and parliamentarians, an important founda-tion for successfully addressing their common societal challenges.In fact, with today’s complex societal challenges, they needed eachother more than ever before in Europe and in the Baltic Sea region.He was not just talking about the most obvious challenges – the cli-mate-related ones – but also social challenges related to the integra-tion of migrants, trafficking, young people unable to enter thelabour market, the aging population, just to give a few examples.There was also another reason why they needed each other, and thatwas that opportunities were better addressed jointly. Instead ofcompeting internally, they could join forces, develop products andservices that they could compete with together on the global mar-kets. The great asset of the Baltic Sea region was the skills and com-petences of their citizens. Another asset was the entrepreneurialMr Anders Bergström, Baltic Sea NGO Network, Policy Area Coordi-nator, PA Education, Science and Social AffairsFourth Session 117mindset and ability to adjust to change. Together, they coulddevelop targeted solutions to these challenges, instead of strugglingon their own in their countries, regions or cities. Together, theycould make better use of their resources.Now, he conceded, his listeners might say: This sounds good buthow do we do this in practice? How could collaboration be boostedin the Baltic Sea region? One answer, Mr Bergström explained, hadalready been mentioned on this day, i.e., the macro-regional strate-gies, with the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, an integratedframework for collaboration and a laboratory where new collabora-tive approaches were developed and practiced, where stakeholderswere invited to cross-sectorial, transnational and multi-level for-mats to co-create solutions to the challenges and make better use oftheir opportunities. The strategies were important for all stakehold-ers, both from the EU members and neighbouring countries. Thesestrategies – now numbering four in Europe – had proved to work,but more needed to be done to further develop them and to makethem sustainable. Collaboration had to be invested in, not the leastin building the institutional capacity for international collabora-tion. Financial resources were also important. Transnational coop-eration did not have to be expensive, but today, far too little of theirbudgets were used for something so important when addressingtheir challenges and making best use of their opportunities.In that regard, he addressed where civil society organisations fit intothis Baltic Sea landscape of transnational collaboration. Some hadalready been part of this collaboration for many years, some wantedto take part but could not find the entrance. Most of them lackedthe needed financial support. Today’s funding was mostly tai-lor-made for the public sector. The Baltic Sea NGO Network hadoffered support to non-governmental organisations for twenty yearswith contacts, with capacity-building and as a platform for dialoguebetween civil society organisations and policymakers. After thosetwenty years, it was high time to reform the Baltic Sea NGO Net-work, and this reform process was now taking place, focusing onproviding tailor-made support to those civil society organisationsthat wanted to be part of cooperating in targeted solutions for soci-etal charges, offering capacity building, guidance when searchingfor suitable frameworks for them to join and jointly push for finan-cial support to the non-governmental organisations that wanted tocontribute with their competencies to societal development. Widerparticipation in transnational cooperation was important, Mr Berg-ström emphasised, and the Baltic Sea NGO Network was here tohelp. They aimed at presenting the reformed Baltic Sea NGO Net-work towards the end of the year.118 Fourth SessionFinally, the speaker addressed what parliamentarians could do moreto support transnational collaboration and civil society involvement.The political support was needed on all levels, national, regional andlocal. To push for more transnational collaboration, helping to changemindsets, increasing the awareness that they needed each other acrossborders and that these days, there were excellent possibilities for col-laboration with their neighbours. What was needed was making bet-ter use of the opportunities, including investing in Baltic Sea regioncollaboration, to make transnational collaboration an integrated partof strategic development in cities, in regions and in their countries.That included valuable contributions from the civil society organisa-tions. The Baltic Sea NGO Network with its members was lookingforward to continuing working with the BSPC.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked Mr Bergström for hisvery interesting information.He moved on to the next speaker, Ms Ulla Karin Nurm, Director ofthe Secretariat of the Northern Dimension Partnership in PublicHealth and Social Well-Being, with the mission to enhance collab-oration and support knowledge to tackle challenges in health andsocial well-being in the region.Address by Ms Ulla Karin Nurm, NDPHS SecretariatMs Ulla Karin Nurm offered her gratitude for the invitation to thisBSPC Anniversary Conference. The opportunity to follow the BSPC’simportant work was highly valued in their partnership, and they werealways happy to participate. The issues that the Conference hadaddressed on this day were dear to the hearts of the NDPHS. TheCOVID-19 pandemic had shown that intense cooperation was theonly way to contain it. Nobody was safe until everyone was safe, sheunderlined. When talking about media, the most pressing need fromhealth professionals was to address the misinformation aboutCOVID-19 vaccines. In some countries, their concern was that it hadsignificantly delayed the progress with vaccination.The topic that she would like to focus on in her address was climatechange and biodiversity, specifically its impact on human health. Shehad to say that the impact of climate change on health had not beensufficiently recognised and discussed, to put it mildly. Ms Nurm wasFourth Session 119Ms Ulla Karin Nurm, NDPHS Secretariatvery happy that the NDPHS’s partner, the World Health Organiza-tion, had succeeded in bringing the climate change and health debatefor the first time ever to the UN Climate Change Conference,COP26, that would be held in Glasgow this fall. Climate change – ormore precisely, the climate emergency – was affecting health inincreasingly obvious ways. Heat waves posed health risks for manypatient groups and older people. The natural disasters that had beenobserved recently this summer were killing people and destroyinginfrastructure, calling for crisis management plans and strengtheningof health infrastructure. The disease patterns were changing. This, MsNurm noted, was a concern for public health. For example, ticks hadmoved higher up north, and therefore lyme disease was now a risk forpopulations who had previously been safe from it. With warm tem-peratures and more unpredictable weather patterns, the ticks wereshowing up in places that had once been thought to be too cold forthem to survive. Moreover, ticks were twice as likely to be infectedwith two or more pathogens these days, exposing bite victims to mul-tiple diseases from a single bite.These were very obvious impacts, and there were processes like theloss of biodiversity due to climate change that might not immedi-ately make one think of a health impact. Yet the impact was there,and it was significant. Ms Nurm provided one example, namely ahealthy diet which was a cornerstone of good health and directlydepended on that biodiversity. Seasonal, local diets were good forhealth and good for the planet. But the loss of biodiversity wasreducing the availability of healthy and sustainable dietary choices.For example, the Baltic Sea was extremely overfished, and some ofthe fish species were unsafe for consumption due to high levels ofmercury and other harmful substances. Ms Nurm noted that she120 Fourth Sessioncould continue with these examples, but her time was limited.Therefore, she suggested that those interested in learning moreabout the topic should read the highly informative report by theWorld Health Organization titled Connecting Global Priorities,Biodiversity and Human Health:Coming to the end, she said she would like to share two thoughtson the way forward. First, she believed that in order to tackle cli-mate change, they really had to step out of their silos and cooperatecross-sectorally. Health was part of the solution and a powerfulmotivating factor for action. Health was moreover created in sectorsother than healthcare. Second, she believed they were long past thepoint where GDP was the main indicator of success. In Ms Nurm’sopinion, thorough success meant a sustainable and inclusive society,with equal opportunities for good health and well-being for all,leaving no one behind. She wished all the listeners to stay healthy.Chair Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked Ms Nurm for her remarks and theinformation.The next speaker was Ms Anna Mannfalk, from the region Skåne inSweden, responsible for the public sector and civic society and NGOs.She was the Vice Chair of Region Skåne Health Care Committee.Address by Ms Anna Mannfalk, Vice-Chair of RegionSkåne Health Care CommitteeMs Anna Mannfalk noted that she was picking up where Mr Berg-ström had left off. The region Skåne was at the forefront, with astructured mutual agreement to ensure that local non-profit organ-isations had the opportunity to establish and develop their opera-tions. Together, they were striving towards the goals of their regionaldevelopment strategy. Ms Mannfalk had the honour to be the chair-person of the Steering Committee of the Agreement, which alsoinvolved regional representatives of the Swedish government. Shecherished this mission and thanked the BSPC for the possibility toaddress all of them on this day. She further appreciated that theirwork was mentioned in the BSPC’s final report.The important and outstanding work of the NGOs in her regioncould be classified in three categories: The first was the forming ofFourth Session 121Ms Anna Mannfalk, Vice-Chair of RegionSkåne Health Care Committeeopinions. The art of communication and reaching isolated communi-ties – sometimes in the centre of a big city – with information wasoften done better by the NGOs than official authorities. Many groupshad experience of hostile and corrupt authorities, and the lack of trustreflected how information was received. The local football club,church, the Red Cross, the LGBT organisations or shelters for thehomeless had gained that trust and could therefore communicatemore easily. One of the region’s programmes emphasised cooperationwith civil society organisations in order to facilitate social networkingand language training among other things. Lately, they had been ableto reach communities with information on the COVID-19 diseaseand promote vaccination through these channels.The second category was providing services. A number of organisa-tions was providing regular healthcare services. The city mission ofMalmö employed a trained nurse who could offer examinations andwhen needed follow persons through further medical care. Othersoffered support for persons with mental issues and facilitated con-tacts with psychiatric care or social authorities. These services weremostly financed through what the region called the IUPs, non-profit public partnerships, which gave most partners a longer plan-ning horizon than yearly grants. They also explored the opportunityto use the possibility for targeting NGOs in the European Rules forPublic Procurement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccina-tion of homeless people and migrants without proper documenta-tion had been performed by the NGOs.The third category was innovation. All of them knew that theNGOs were more innovative and quicker to action than large122 Fourth Sessionorganisations like the region Skåne. This had been evident in 2015when NGOs had met immigrants at train stations and had openedshelters as tens of thousands of migrants had been crossing the bor-ders to Sweden in Skåne. When the COVID-19 disease had struckEurope and the rest of the world, the situation had been quite dif-ferent. The tools that were normally used for prices, food and shel-ter had been ruled out due to fear of spreading the virus. A majorityof the volunteers had themselves been of an age where they shouldhave isolated themselves and stayed safe at home. On top of that,several governments had closed borders, trapping people. Beingpart of a common job market with Copenhagen, this had had con-sequences for Skåne. During the spring of 2020, the non-profitorganisations had had to find new ways to be able to continue theiractivities. The region Skåne had inquired early on if needs had beenmet in order to start a digital tool for social physical or culturalactivities and had been able to help finance some of those. Now itwas necessary to find new ways to break isolation.She went on to speak about their other challenges for the future.Skåne had a relatively young population but a lower employmentrate than other urban regions in Sweden. This led to segregation andpolarisation. They were involved in projects aiming to test newmodels for cooperation, enabling NGOs to take part in the plan-ning and implementation of operations leading to social sustaina-bility. This was handled in cooperation with Mr Anders Bergström’sorganisation, the Baltic Sea NGO Network. Through joint efforts,they could attract more knowledge, greater funding and hopefullyreach better results together.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked her very much for herstatement and moved on to three important reports by BSPC rap-porteurs. These were to be presented by the respective rapporteurs.The first concerned sea-dumped munitions, presented by Mr PeterStein.Address by Mr Peter Stein, BSPC Rapporteur on Sea-Dumped MunitionsMr Peter Stein congratulated all of those present on the BSPC’s30th anniversary from the Bundestag as well. For him, it was his 9thyear that he’d had the honour of being a member of the BSPC. ItFourth Session 123Mr Peter Stein, BSPC Rapporteur on Sea-Dumped Munitionsdid indeed feel like a very special family, and he was very muchlooking forward to the time when they could meet in personrather than virtually. Mr Stein noted that he had presented aninterim report on sea-dumped munitions in the previous year.Since he was concluding his work now with the final report, hewas cautioning his listeners that they should not consider his sub-mission as too final because it was the beginning of trying to reacha solution. He believed it was important to emphasise that therewas not a great deal of time left to get going, but it was not yet toolate to tackle this challenge, together. Mr Stein underlined thatthey would not just be removing the unexploded ordnance anddumped munitions on the seabed but also the traces of a war thatGermany was still regretting, and he hoped they could continuetheir commitment to never have a war again in the Baltic Searegion. The best way of doing that was to keep on maintaining thepeace as they had been.The world needed role models, and it was part of his report – hiswish – for the way that the Baltic Sea states were dealing with theremoval of sea-dumped munitions and unexploded ordnance onthe seabed would become exemplary as a region. Mr Stein men-tioned that he had sent out a questionnaire to the regional assem-blies. In that respect, he thanked Secretary General Bodo Bahr forhelping him with what actually was quite an unusual step to con-duct, i.e., a survey of this kind. His goal had been to motivate theparliamentarians to think about their skill sets and capacities intheir own regions but also to get a sense of their interests. After all,the task ahead was about bundling their capacities to solve thisproblem of sea-dumped munitions and unexploded ordnance. Thatwas what the job was about.124 Fourth SessionHe reiterated that his work might look like a final report, but theemphasis was on the word “report” rather than the term “final”because it was very much the beginning of the process. The BalticSea region would do well to take a strategic approach, as they had tolet their voices be heard in terms of the European Maritime Strat-egy. There were two meetings in that regard coming up, one wasDiamond II in September when they would be presenting theirreport, and the other was the Kiel Munitions Clearance Week whichwould take place the following week. 20 October would see theHELCOM Ministerial Meeting on revising the Baltic Sea ActionPlan. These were all aspects that the BSPC had already influencedby engaging with this issue at all. Mr Stein thanked Minister Rothand Ms Pivnenko because both had spoken clearly about the chal-lenge that was facing all of them and that they all shared in terms ofdealing with the environment and protecting the biotope of theBaltic Sea. What mattered was the emphasis on working togetherand ensuring that the Baltic Sea would never again experience war.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked Mr Stein for his submis-sion and his work. The next rapporteur, Ms Veit, would speak onmigration and integration.Address by Ms Carola Veit, BSPC Rapporteur onMigration and IntegrationMs Carola Veit began by noting that the BSPC Working Group onMigration and Integration had ended the year before, after threeyears of comprehensive work on the topic. Therefore, this was herfirst year of providing a regular report as a rapporteur.Perusing the answers of the governments of the Baltic Sea region inthis field to the 29th BSPC Resolution, it could be concluded thatmost BSPC member states had pursued their regional migrationand integration plans and projects. She provided some examples:The Norwegian government had launched a new integration strat-egy, called Integration Through Knowledge. Germany had beenrevising its national action plan on integration and the participatoryprocess. In Latvia, the cabinet of ministers had adopted the guide-lines for the development of a cohesive and active society, with onetask being the promotion of foreign citizens. In February, Lithuaniahad renewed its action plan for the integration of foreigners intoFourth Session 125Ms Carola Veit, BSPC Rapporteur on Migration and Integrationsociety. One best practice example had already been highlighted,namely the projects of the region Skåne in Sweden.An important aspect was the destiny of unaccompanied childmigrants. In that respect, Ms Veit mentioned Russia’s cooperationon migration issues in the Baltic Sea region that was continuingthrough the CBSS Anti-Trafficking Task Force. The interaction onthis issue had also been carried out within the framework of theCouncil’s Expert Group on Children at Risk. Of course, they had totake note of the already criticised move by Belarus. Lithuania andPoland saw Lukashenka’s regime of sending migrants across the bor-der as part of a “hybrid war”, disregarding human rights, peace anddemocracy, using people as means of political pressure in responseto EU sanctions imposed upon Belarus. Against this background,Ms Veit touched on the issue of the EU protecting its external bor-ders, but a general European approach to sharing the burden ofmigration was needed as well. This had also been illustrated byPABSEC as well.For one aspect, she returned to Sweden’s answer to the previousyear’s resolution. The Swedish government had pointed out thatwhen it came to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on integra-tion, it was becoming more and more evident that the pandemicwould have a disproportionately negative effect on the integrationof migrants and refugees. This in particular concerned labour mar-ket outcomes but also increased risks of being exposed to COVID-19, segregation and increased vulnerability. One of many difficul-ties was the accessibility of digital devices. Ms Veit noted a Germanstudy which had been published in April of 2021 had come to thesame conclusion. One year of COVID-19 had affected almost every126 Fourth Sessionaspect of society, economy and politics. Migrants, refugees and theirintegration had stayed under the radar in the public debate. There-fore, there was a severe impact of the pandemic on every aspect ofmigration, related to politics, health, housing, education as well asthe labour market. Ms Veit believed that this applied in similar fash-ion to the whole of the Baltic Sea region.In conclusion, there were many reasons to continue sharing theirbest practices and strive for better inclusion and social cohesion aswell as for sharing the task of migration.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked Ms Veit very much forher report. He moved on to the final rapporteur who would speakabout maritime policy, Mr Jochen Schulte.Address by Mr Jochen Schulte, BSPC Rapporteur onIntegrated Maritime PolicyMr Jochen Schulte began by thanking Mr Jörgen Pettersson for hisvaluable input and continuous commitment to the integrated mar-itime policy. This year’s report was dedicated to providing an over-view of events, innovations and legislative developments and actionsin the field of integrated maritime policy. Their main focus was onblue growth, energy infrastructure and environmental aspects ofmaritime policy. Unfortunately, it was impossible to overlook theimpact of the COVID-19 pandemic. There had been lockdownsimposed by governments and further containment measures. Con-sequently, international merchant and cruise shipping had facedinsurmountable obstacles. Within the Baltic Sea region, the totalnumber of cruise guests had decreased by 99 per cent in 2020, com-pared to 2019, and the total number of calls had decreased by 96per cent. Because of outbreaks of COVID-19 infections amongport crews, several terminals at important industrial harboursneeded to be closed, such as for instance China’s second-largestport.The pandemic had shown that maritime transport remained animportant economic factor in the global economy. The industry asa whole of maritime shipping remained a profitable business forthose involved. The pandemic – contrary to what had been expected– had led to an extreme boom because the existing number of con-Fourth Session 127Mr Jochen Schulte, BSPC Rapporteur on Integrated Maritime Policytainers had been limited, and in connection with the pandemic andthe lockdown, there had been a huge growth – particularly in onlineretail. Therefore, freight rates on the most important shippingroutes had increased. In fact, according to the Financial Times, MrSchulte noted, freight rates on the crucial routes between Chinaand Europe had tripled, in some cases even quadrupled, fromaround the turn of the year 2020 to 2021. Cargo prices of interna-tional shipping had risen by 46 per cent in the first half of 2021.The general situation in terms of maritime transport against thisbackground on the one hand was a challenge but on the otheroffered opportunities. The Baltic Sea region, the BSPC and theCBSS could play an important role in this context by offering solu-tions for the future. Maritime stakeholders were already in the pro-cess of achieving a green transition in maritime transport. It couldbe seen that the major manufacturers of maritime engines wereshifting to more sustainable replacement fuels for fossil fuels,including LNG but also others. This would further lead to custom-ers ordering ships having to pay higher prices for freight, but thiswas better for the environment and was therefore a meaningfulapproach. Naturally, in this respect, harbours played an importantrole in the Baltic Sea region, and these could be a model for greensolutions and further economic growth as well. What was impor-tant was, however, that despite all of the different views – not leastpolitical views – they had, that they were facing the challengestogether. They could only be solved or dealt with together. It wasnecessary to bear in mind that until the end of this century, onecould expect temperatures to increase such that the Baltic Sea regioncould see a rise of the water level by one metre. If one furtherassumed that the temperature fluctuations would continue to128 Fourth Sessionincrease intensely, then more natural disasters would occur whilebiodiversity would be affected through many different species dyingout. Therefore, maritime shipping had to come up with an environ-mental and economic solution to this urgent issue and diverse polit-ical views.Session chairman Jarosław Wałęsa, thanked Mr Schulte for his com-ments and statements. Unfortunately, there was no more time foradditional remarks or questions. With that, he thanked everyonefor their contributions. He believed that these had been very inform-ative and had underlined how much more work there was ahead ofthem. Mr Wałęsa closed the fourth session and returned the screento the BSPC president.Fourth CSelosssiionng 112299CLOSING SESSIONChair: Mr Pyry Niemi, President of the BSPC 2020-2022BSPC President Pyry Niemi thanked Mr Wałęsa and all other speak-ers for their great contributions in the preceding session. He openedthe closing session of the digital 30th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Con-ference. First off, he invited the attendees to adopt the Resolutionof the 30th Annual Conference. As always, he reminded everyonethat they could only decide by unanimous consent. However, therewas one matter that he would like to address beforehand. The mem-bers of the working group had already informed the attendees aboutthe respective details at this Conference. The Working Group onClimate Change and Biodiversity, chaired by Mr Niemi’s colleagueCecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, had presented an excellent and very sub-stantial interim report. Their calls for action had fed into the Reso-lution of this day. Unfortunately, the working group had so far onlybeen able to hold digital sessions, due to pandemic-related restric-tions. It would hold another digital session this autumn but wouldonly be able to start on-site sessions in the coming year. In addition,this day’s contributions to topics had once again made clear howcomplex and comprehensive the issue was. That was why the work-ing group – also against the background that the next annual con-ference was planned to be held on 12 – 14 June 2022 – had unani-mously proposed extending the working group’s mandate foranother year. The group would then present the final report duringthe 32nd Annual Conference in 2023 in Berlin. Since the workinggroup had been established by the annual conference, it seemed bestfor the BSPC to also decide on the mandate for the extension.113300 FColousritnhg SessionTherefore, President Niemi asked the Conference if they agreed toextend the mandate of the BSPC Working Group on ClimateChange and Biodiversity for another year and that the workinggroup would submit its final report to the Conference in 2023.President Niemi saw only agreement and no opposition. Therefore,the matter was decided.The 30th BSPC decided to extend the mandate of the BSPC WorkingGroup on Climate Change and Biodiversity for another year to lastuntil the 32nd Conference in 2023.President Niemi thanked the attendees for their consent and wishedMs Tenfjord-Toftby as well as the whole working group continuedgreat success in their important work. He was very optimistic andconfident that the group would achieve further excellent results. Inthat, he underlined “excellent results”.Moving on to the Resolution of the 30th Baltic Sea ParliamentaryConference, he offered many thanks to all the delegations for theirconstructive proposals and hard work in the BSPC’s digital draftingcommittee. As always, it had not been an easy feat to find an agree-ment, but it had been worth it to the end. The president was veryproud to have again succeeded and proved that they could bringsuch complex negotiations to an excellent result online. He notedthat everyone had received a copy of the draft resolution. It hadfound unanimous agreement by the members of the Drafting Com-mittee, and now the Conference would decide whether to adopt it.President Niemi asked if everyone could agree to the Resolution ofthe 30th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.There were only positive responses and none against adoption norabstentions. Therefore, the Resolution was adopted, he announced.The 30th BSPC unanimously adopted the Resolution of the 30th BalticSea Parliamentary Conference.President Niemi hoped that the content of this resolution would beacted on by their governments and other institutions around theBaltic Sea.He moved on to the last part of the 30th BSPC. At this point, theBSPC had regularly passed the baton from one president to thenext. This time, the decision had been made to extend the Swedishpresidency until the end of the 31st BSPC. That would be held inFourth CSelosssiionng 113311Stockholm from 12 – 14 June 2022. Therefore, Mr Niemi took theopportunity to thank everyone again for agreeing to this. He furtherthanked the BSPC for the confidence shown in the Swedish side tocontinue with this vital task. Mr Niemi said that he would continueto exercise the function of the BSPC President diligently and withdedication. Accordingly, the usual passing of the baton at this pointwas not necessary. In a rather light-hearted moment, he said he waspassing the baton from his one hand into his other hand.They had reached the end of the Digital 30th Conference, PresidentNiemi announced. It had been shorter and different, and he believedall of them were missing their informal in-person talks. However,the BSPC had shown once more this year that they could haveexcellency in an outstanding cooperation. They had again under-lined the importance of parliamentary cooperation and furtherstrengthened the parliamentary dimension of cooperation in theBaltic Sea region. On this day, based on their intensive preparatorywork, they had reinforced the contents of their work, made progressin fundamental issues and deepened the cooperation with theirpartners at all levels. They had shown that they could intensify theircooperation, regardless of external circumstances, even when havingto resort to digital possibilities instead of direct encounters. Fur-thermore, they had continued to optimise these possibilities. Theyhad delved in the Standing Committee, seminars, the workinggroup and Conference with crucial questions of democracy andtheir values. They had deepened fundamental and significant issuesof the future. They had appreciated the value of their thirty years ofcooperation and what the BSPC had achieved so far. They hadintensively involved the young generation in their discussions anddeliberations and had tried to gear their decisions to the needs ofthe next generation as well. It was important to the BSPC and theparliamentarians to involve the young people even more in theirdecision-making policies.President Niemi thanked the representatives of government, civilsociety, academia and all the institutions involved for their intensivecooperation in the preparation and this day’s holding of the Confer-ence. He was grateful for all those who had contributed on this dayfor their excellent contributions and their outstanding dedicationand commitment. Furthermore, he thanked the interpreters whohad once again done an outstanding job under challenging condi-tions and had made a valuable contribution to facilitating under-standing among all of them. Mr Niemi thanked all delegates, thechairs of their sessions and the professional conference systemsteam.113322 FColousritnhg SessionOn this day, they had had high quality input. They had listened,reflected, discussed, negotiated and decided on far-reachingdemands to improve the situation in fundamental areas. It was upto the parliamentarians to ensure that their calls for action wereimplemented, contributing to an even better future in the Baltic Searegion. To this end, he wished all of them determination, courage,skill, foresight and sustainable assertiveness. They had the contentfor a vision until 2030. Now, it was a matter of turning it into real-ity. What had been achieved so far, what had been deepened on thisday and what had been planned for the future was worth all theirefforts, President Niemi emphasised. The BSPC would include theresults of this day’s conference in their publication on 30 years ofthe BSPC. In addition to the version published on the website, aprinted copy of the 30-year anniversary brochure would be sent tothe members, with contributions by the presidents of the memberparliaments.President Niemi very much looked forward to seeing all of themagain in the coming year, at the latest from 12 – 14 June 2022, atthe 31st BSPC, and to welcome them directly and personally to hishometown Stockholm in Sweden, at the Riksdag. Until then, hewished them health, strength and success in all endeavours.With that, BSPC President Pyry Niemi declared the digital 30th Bal-tic Sea Parliamentary Conference closed.List of Participants 133List of ParticipantsKingdom of Sweden1. Speaker of the RiksdagH.E. Dr Andreas Norlén2. Minister for Foreign Affairs, SwedenH.E. Ann LindeMember Parliaments and ParliamentaryOrganizationsÅland Parliament3. Wille Valve, Member of the Åland Parliament4. Jessy Eckerman, Member of the Åland Parliament5. Liz Mattsson, Member of the Åland Parliament6. Simon Påvals, Member of the Åland Parliament7. Jesper Josefsson, Member of the Åland Parliament8. Jörgen Pettersson, Member of the Åland Parliament9. Sten Eriksson, Secretary of the Delegationof the Åland ParliamentBaltic Assembly10. Andrius Kupčinskas, President of the Baltic Assembly,Lithuania11. Agnija Antanoviča, Senior Consultant, Baltic AssemblySecretariat12. Rovena Berga, Baltic Assembly SecretariatBremen13. Antje Grotheer, Vice President of the State Parliamentof Bremen14. Ute Reimers-Bruns, Member of the State Parliamentof BremenDenmark15. Christian Juhl, Member of the Danish Parliament16. Karin Gaardsted, Member of the Danish Parliament17. Kamilla Kjelgaard, Secretary of the Delegation of the DanishParliament134 List of ParticipantsEuropean Parliament18. Aušra Rakštelytė, Secretary of the Delegation of the EuropeanParliamentFinland19. Sakari Puisto, Member of the Parliament of Finland20. Riitta Mäkinen, Member of the Parliament of Finland21. Mai Kivelä, Member of the Parliament of Finland22. Mika Laaksonen, Secretary of the Delegation of the Parliament ofFinlandGermany23. Johannes Schraps, Vice President of the BSPC, Member of theGerman Bundestag24. Peter Stein, Member of the German Bundestag25. Petra Nicolaisen, Member of the German Bundestag26. Enrico Komning, Member of the German Bundestag27. Katalin Zádor, Secretary of the Delegation of the German Bundestag28. Pia-Sophie Brandenburg, Secretary of the Delegation of theGerman Bundestag29. Lynda Lawrence, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestag30. Friederike Fritz, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestag31. Aleksandra Tryapitsyna, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestag32. Kristina van Deest, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestagHamburg33. Carola Veit, President of the State Parliament of Hamburg34. Danial Ilkhanipour, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg35. Dagmar Wiedemann, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg36. Alske Freter, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg37. Ulrike Sparr, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg38. David Erkalp, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg39. Dr Carola Ensslen, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg40. Stephan Jersch, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg41. Johannes Düwel, Director of the Parliament of Hamburg42. Friederike Lünzmann, Secretary of the Delegation of the Parliamentof Hamburg43. Barbara Ketelhut, Press officer of the Parliament of HamburgList of Participants 135Iceland44. Kolbeinn Óttarsson Proppé, Member of the Parliament of Iceland45. Helgi Thorsteinsson, Secretary of the Delegation of Parliament ofIcelandKaliningrad46. Evgeny Mishin, Member of the Parliament of the KaliningradRegional Duma47. Marina Prozorova, Secretary of the Delegation of the KaliningradRegional DumaKarelia48. 48. Elissan Vladimirovich Shandalovich, Chairman of theLegislative Assembly of the Republic of KareliaLatvia49. Arvils Ašeradens, Member of the Parliament of Latvia50. Jānis Vucāns, Member of the Parliament of Latvia and FormerPresident of the BSPC51. Iveta Benhena-Bēkena, Member of the Parliament of Latvia52. Ingrīda Sticenko, Secretary of the Delegation of the Parliament ofLatviaLeningrad53. Sergei Bebenin, Chairman of the Leningrad Region LegislativeAssembly TBC54. Nikolay Pustotin, Vice-Chairman of the Leningrad RegionLegislative Assembly TBC55. Iurii Terentev, Member of the Leningrad Region Legislative AssemblyTBC56. Maxim Gindin, Secretary of the Delegation of the Parliament ofLeningradLithuania57. 57. Renata Godfrey, Secretary of the Delegation of the Parliament ofLithuaniaMecklenburg-Vorpommern58. Beate Schlupp, Vice President of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern136 List of Participants59. Philipp da Cunha, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern60. Dirk Friedriszik, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern61. Karsten Kolbe, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern62. Nikolaus Kramer, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern63. Jochen Schulte, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern64. Georg Strätker, Secretary to the Delegation of the State Parliamentof Mecklenburg- Vorpommern65. Evgeniya Bakalova, Secretary to the Delegation of the StateParliament of Mecklenburg- VorpommernNordic Council66. Michael Tetzschner, Member of the Parliament of Norway and theNordic Council67. Kristina Háfoss, Secretary General of the Nordic Council68. Arne Fogt Bergby, Senior Adviser of the Nordic CouncilNorway69. Jorodd Asphjell, Member of the Norwegian Parliament TBC70. Ulf Leirstein, Member of the Norwegian Parliament TBC71. Ove Trellevik, Member of the Norwegian Parliament TBC72. Torhild Bransdal, Member of the Norwegian Parliament TBC73. Thomas Fraser, Secretary of the Delegation of the NorwegianParliamentPoland74. Jarosław Wałęsa, Member of the Sejm Parliament of Poland75. Kacper Płażyński, Member of the Sejm Parliament of Poland76. Jerzy Materna, Member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland77. Grzegorz Matusiak, Member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland78. Sławomir Rybicki, Senator of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland79. Piotr Koperski, Secretary of the Delegation for International andEuropean Union AffairsList of Participants 137Russian FederationCouncil of the Federation80. Sergey Perminov, Member of the Council of the Federation81. Elena Bibikova, Councilor of the Committee for Foreign Affairs ofthe Council of the Federation82. Anna Zhiltsova, Councilor of the Committee for Foreign Affairs ofthe Council of the FederationState Duma83. Valentina Pivnenko, Member of the State Duma and FormerPresident of the BSPC84. Oleg Nilov, Member of the State Duma85. Alexey Veller, Member of the State Duma86. Sergey Karseka, Deputy Head of the Department of InternationalRelations87. Yulia Guskova, Secretary of the Delegation of International RelationsSaint Petersburg88. Dmitry Tugov, Member of the Delegation of Saint PetersburgLegislative Assembly89. Nikolai Polevikov, Secretary of the Delegation of Saint PetersburgLegislative AssemblySchleswig-Holstein90. Hartmut Hamerich, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein91. Regina Poersch, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein92. Stephan Holowaty, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein93. Bernd Voß, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein94. Jette Waldinger-Thiering, Member of the State Parliament ofSchleswig-Holstein95. Joschka Knuth, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein96. Mareike Watolla, Secretary of the Delegation for InternationalAffairs of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein138 List of ParticipantsSweden97. Pyry Niemi, President of the BSPC, Member of the SwedishParliament98. Cecilie Tenfjord Toftby, Member of the Swedish Parliament99. Pernilla Stålhammar, Member of the Swedish Parliament100. Aron Emilsson, Member of the Swedish Parliament101. Ingvar Mattsson, Secretary-General of the Swedish Parliament102. Anna-Karin Hedström, Head of the International Department103. Johanna Ingvarsson, Secretary of the Delegation of the SwedishParliament104. Dan Alvarsson, Secretary of the Delegation of the SwedishParliamentBSPC and ObserversBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference105. Bodo Bahr, Secretary General of the BSPCBaltic Sea NGO Network106. Ole Meldgaard, Baltic Sea NGO Network Denmark107. Honoratte BNN Muhanzi, CEO of Baltic Sea NGO NetworkNorway108. Kirsten Rytter, Baltic Sea NGO Network Norway109. Anders Bergström, Norden Association Sweden110. Felix Schartner-Giertta, Norden Association SwedenBaltic Sea Region University Network (BSRUN)111. Kari Hyppönen, President of the BSRUN112. Andreas Zaby, Vice-President of the BSRUN113. Dmitry Vasilenko, Vice-President of the BSRUNBaltic Sea States Subregional Co-operation (BSSSC)114. Mieczysław Struk, Chairman of the BSSSC115. Monika Pochroń-Frankowska, Deputy Director of Chancellery ofthe Marshal for International and Interregional Cooperation of thePomorskie Voivodeship, Secretariat of the BSSSC116. Agata Birecka, Secretariat of the BSSSCList of Participants 139Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum117. Liviu Pintilie, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2021, Estonia118. Kamila Ciok, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2021, Poland119. Jonas Færgeman, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2021,DenmarkCouncil of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS)120. Grzegorz Marek Poznański, Director General of the CBSSSecretariat121. Bernd Hemingway, Deputy Director General of the CBSSSecretariat122. Daria Akhutina, Senior Adviser for Sustainable & Prosperous Region123. Thorvaldur David Kristjansson, Senior Adviser Regional Identity124. Aline Mayr, Project Coordinator for Regional Identity125. Paulina Ek, Media & Communication Team Leader126. Silvija Marcinkeviciute, Media & Communication Officer127. Ligia Broström, Senior Administrative Officer128. Vendela Gebbie, CBSS SecretariatCPMR Baltic Sea Commission129. Jari Nakhanen, President of the CPMR BSC130. Lucille Ehrhart, Executive SecretaryInterparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Common-wealth of Independent States (IPA CIS)131. Maksimillian Selyutin, Head of the Department for InternationalRelationsNorthern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and SocialWell-being (NDPHS)132. Ülla-Karin Nurm, Director133. Silvija Geistarte, Senior AdviserOrganization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamen-tary Assembly (OSCE PA)134. Margareta Cederfelt, President of the OSCE PA140 List of ParticipantsParliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation(PABSEC)135. Prof Asaf Hajiyev, Secretary General of the PABSEC136. Miltiadis Makrygiannis, Deputy Secretary General of the PABSECParliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM)137. Hon Pedro Roque, Vice President and President Emeritus of the PAM138. Amb. Sergio Piazzi, Secretary General of the PAM139. Vladimir Kirushev, Deputy to the Secretary General of the PAM140. Irene Pasqua, Program Officer of the PAM141. Giacomo Bogo, Researcher of the PAMParliamentary Association of the North-West Russia (PANWR)142. Natalia Vedischeva, Chair of the Standing Committee on Inter-parliamentary cooperation and Vice-Speaker of the MurmanskRegional DumaSkåne Regional County Council143. Annika Annerby Jansson, President, Region Skåne144. Lennart Pettersson, Vice President, Region Skåne145. Ewa Pihl Krabbe, Vice President, Region Skåne146. Anna Mannfalk, Vice Chair of Region Skåne Health CareCommittee147. Maria Lindbom, Senior Advisor, Region SkåneFormer Presidents of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference148. Franz Thönnes, Former President of the BSPC, Germany149. Christina Gestrin, Former President of the BSPC, Finland, VideomessageExecutiveMinistriesMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Norway150. H.E. Ine Eriksen Søreide, Minister of Foreign Affairs, CBSSPresidency151. Olav Berstad, Senior AdviserList of Participants 141152. Hanne Brusletto, Minister Counsellor153. Snøfrid Byrløkken Emterud, CounsellorMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Lithuania154. Arnoldas Pranckevičius, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of theRepublic of LithuaniaMinistry for Environment, Nature Conservation andNuclear Safety, Germany155. H.E. Svenja Schulze, Federal Minister, HELCOM Chair, VideomessageFederal Foreign Office, Germany156. H.E. Michael Roth, State Minister for Europe, Video Message157. Maurice Gajan, Advisor for Baltic Sea PolicyMinistry for Environment and Climate, Sweden158. Anders Mankler, State Secretary to the Minister for Environmentand Climate, Sweden159. Micael Hagman, Deputy Director160. Andrea Josephson, Desk OfficerMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Finland161. Helena Tuuri, Ambassador for Baltic Sea AffairsMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Russia162. Alexey Ivanov, Head of SectionMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Sweden163. Eva Ekmehag, Senior Advisor164. Jonas Norling, Deputy Director Arctic AffairsEmbassies to the Kingdom of Sweden in StockholmEmbassy of Finland165. H. E. Liisa Talonpoika, Ambassador of Finland to the Kingdom ofSweden142 List of ParticipantsEmbassy of Latvia166. H. E. Marģers Krams, Ambassador of Latvia to the Kingdom ofSwedenEmbassy of Lithuania167. H. E. Giedrius Čekuolis, Ambassador of Lithuania to the Kingdomof Sweden168. Donatas Butkus, Counsellor at the Embassy of Lithuania to theKingdom of Sweden169. Deimante Telycenaite, Intern at the Embassy of Lithuania to theKingdom of SwedenEmbassy of Norway170. Kirsten Hammelbo, Embassy of Norway to the Kingdom of SwedenExperts171. Erik Halkjaer, President of the board of the Swedish section ofReporters without borders172. Prof Dr Jeanette Hofmann, Weizenbaum Institute Berlin173. Erwin Sellering, Chairman of the Executive Board of theFoundation for Climate and Environmental Protection and formerPrime-Minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern174. Katja Enderlein, Manager of MEDIGREIF Parkklinik &digitization ambassor of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern175. Dr Vadim Sivkov, Director of the Atlantic branch of the Institute ofOceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, KaliningradOther ParticipantsInterpreters176. Catherine Johnson177. Astrid Geese178. Martina Würzburg179. Gyda Thurow180. Aleksei Repin181. Margarita Höckner182. Elena Buggeskova183. Stein Larsen184. Piotr Krasnowolski185. Aleksander JakimoviczList of Participants 143BSPC Secretariat Support186. Malgorzata Ludwiczek187. Marc Hertel188. Gildo Kweton189. Roman Kweton190. Jördis PalmeTechnical Support - Professional Conference Systems (PCS)191. Nils Fuchs, technical moderator192. Sebastian Meyer, technical moderatorSpeakers• Dr Andreas Norlén, Speaker of the Riksdag• Ann Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sweden• Pyry Niemi, MP of Sweden, President of the BSPC• Ine Eriksen Søreide, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway• Michael Roth, MP and State Minister for Europe, GermanPresidency 2022–2023 of the CBSS• Margareta Cederfelt, President of the OSCE PA• Prof Dr Jeanette Hofmann, Weizenbaum Institute Berlin• Oleg Nilov, Member of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly ofthe Russian Federation• Erik Halkjaer, President of the board of the Swedish section ofReporters without borders• Arnoldas Pranckevičius, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of theRepublic of Lithuania• Svenja Schulze, Federal Minister for the Environment, NatureConservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany• Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, MP of Sweden, Chair of the BSPCWorking Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity• Anders Mankler, State Secretary to the Minister for Environmentand Climate, Sweden• Erwin Sellering, Chairman of the Executive Board of theFoundation for Climate and Environmental Protection and formerPrime-Minister of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern• Liviu Pintilie, Estonia and Kamila Ciok, Poland, Baltic SeaParliamentary Youth Forum 2021144 List of Participants• Liz Mattsson, MP of Åland Islands, Vice-Chair of the BSPCWorking Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity• Dr Vadim V. Sivkov, Director of the Atlantic Branch of the ShirshovInstitute of Oceanology of Russian Academy of Science and the FederalState Budgetary Institution of Science, Kaliningrad region• Prof Jānis Vucāns, Former President of the BSPC, Latvia• Valentina Pivnenko, Former President of the BSPC, Russia• Franz Thönnes, Former President of the BSPC, Germany• Christina Gestrin, Former President of the BSPC, Finland• Jonas Færgeman, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2021,Denmark• Pedro Roque, Vice President and President Emeritus of the PAM• Prof Asaf Hajiyev, Secretary General of the PABSEC• Ambassador Grzegorz Marek Poznański, Director General of theCouncil of the Baltic Sea States Secretariat• Mieczysław Struk, Chairman of the Baltic Sea States SubregionalCooperation, BSSSC, Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship• Jari Nakhanen, President of the Baltic Sea Commission of theConference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR BSC)• Anders Bergström, Baltic Sea NGO Network, Policy AreaCoordinator, PA Education, Science and Social Affairs• Anna Mannfalk, Vice Chair of Region Skåne Health CareCommittee, responsible for cooperation public sector – Civil Society/NGOs• Peter Stein, BSPC Rapporteur on Sea Dumped Munitions• Carola Veit, BSPC Rapporteur on Migration and Integration• Jörgen Pettersson, BSPC Rapporteur on Integrated Maritime PolicyFourth CSelosssiionng 114455PHOTOS114466 FColousritnhg SessionFourth CSelosssiionng 11447730Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference Secretariatwww.bspc.netBSPC SecretariatSchlossgartenallee 1519061 SchwerinGermany