31st BSPC Report

31BSPCYEARSBerlin , 27 – 29 August 202 3The 31st Baltic SeaParliamentary ConferenceThe Future of the BalticSea Region12. - 14. June 202231The 31st Baltic SeaParliamentary ConferenceThe Future of the Baltic Sea RegionThe answer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:Strong democracies, protection of human rightsand sustainable development12. - 14. June 202231BSPCYEARSBerlin , 27 – 29 August 202 32The 31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC)The Future of the Baltic Sea Region – was established in 1991 as a forum for politicalThe answer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: dialogue between parliamentarians from the Bal-Strong democracies, protection of human rights tic Sea Region. BSPC aims at raising awarenessand sustainable development and opinion on issues of current political interestand relevance for the Baltic Sea Region. It pro-Text: Marc Hertel, Jördis Palme and Bodo Bahrmotes 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.The BSPC gathers parliamentarians from 10national parliaments, 7 regional parliamentswith legislative powers and 5 parliamentaryorganisations (supranational parliaments, parlia-mentary bodies and organisations) around theBaltic Sea). Adherence to and advocacy for com-pliance with the recognised rules of internationallaw are a sine qua non for participation andcooperation in the BSPC and its work.The BSPC thus constitutes a unique parliamen-tary bridge between the EU- and the democraticnon-EU countries of the Baltic Sea Region.The BSPC external interfaces include parliamen-tary, governmental, sub-regional and otherorganisations in the Baltic Sea Region and theNorthern Dimension area, among them CBSS,HELCOM, the Northern Dimension Partner-ship in Health and Social Well-Being (NDPHS),the Baltic Sea Labour Forum (BSLF), the BalticSea States Subregional Cooperation (BSSSC).The BSPC shall initiate and guide political activ-ities in the region; support and strengthen dem-ocratic institutions in the participating states;improve dialogue between govern- ments, par-liaments and civil society; strengthen the com-mon identity of the Baltic Sea Region by meansof close co-operation between national andregional parliaments on the basis of equality; andinitiate and guide political activities in the BalticSea Region, endowing them with additionaldemocratic legitimacy and parliamentaryauthority.Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference The political recommendations of the annualBodo Bahr Parliamentary Conferences are expressed in aSecretary General Conference Resolution adopted by consensus by+49 171 5512557 the Conference. The adopted Resolution shall bebodo.bahr@bspcmail.net submitted to the governments of the democraticwww.bspc.net Baltic Sea Region countries, the CBSS and theBSPC Secretariat EU, and disseminated to other relevant national,Schlossgartenallee 15 regional and local stakeholders in the Baltic Sea19061 Schwerin Region and its neighbourhood.3ContentsTHE OPENING ................................... 5FIRST SESSIONPeaceful and reliable neighbourliness and intensecooperation in the Baltic Sea Region in times of crisis ...... 15SECOND SESSIONDemocracy and freedom of expression ................... 49THIRD SESSIONMitigating Climate Change,Preserving Biodiversity and Adapting to Climate Change ..... 70FOURTH SESSIONDemographic Challengesin Light of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine ............... 91GENERAL DEBATE .............................. 114CLOSING SESSION .............................. 122PRE-SESSION ON ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS .... 122LIST OF PARTICIPANTS .......................... 131PHOTOS ....................................... 144Opening of the Conference 5THE OPENINGChair:Mr Pyry Niemi, President of the BSPCCo-Chair:Mr Johannes Schraps, BSPC Vice PresidentDr Andreas NorlénSpeaker of the Riksdag, Opening speechMs Ann LindeMinister for Foreign Affairs, SwedenMr Pyry NiemiPresident of the BSPC 2020–2022IntroductionBSPC President Pyry Niemi addressed the Speaker of the Riksdag,government representatives and excellencies, colleagues and friendsof the BSPC, saying that it was a great honour and privilege for himin his capacity as the president of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Con-ference and the chair of the Swedish delegation to the BSPC to wel-come all of them to the 31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.With that, he declared the Conference open. He was very happy tosee all of them in the former Second Chamber in the parliamentand in Stockholm. For two years, the Swedish delegation had beenpreparing for this Conference and were finally able to meet alto-gether. Without any further ado, he gave the floor to the Speaker ofthe Riksdag, Dr Andreas Norlén.Welcome Speech by Dr Andreas Norlén, Speaker ofthe Riksdag, SwedenDr Andreas Norlén said he was delighted to have the opportunityto greet all of the attendees at the Riksdag on this day. This was thefourth time that Sweden was hosting the Conference but the firsttime that they were welcoming the BSPC Conference to Stock-holm. This was also the first physical Conference to be held since2019, as the 2020 and 2021 Conferences had been conductedonline on account of the pandemic. This was the first time in severalyears that democratic discussions in this constellation and of thisscale were possible. He truly welcomed that the possibilities wereback.6 Opening of the ConferenceDuring the previous year’s Conference, the pandemic had posed ahuge challenge, but they were now facing another kind of challengein the form of Russia’s war against Ukraine, a development that hadhad a big impact on the Baltic Sea region, on cooperation in theregion in general and on the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.They were now meeting at in times of great trouble, in times oflarge-scale war in Europe – times that would continue to affect theirpart of the world for generations to come. When people had wokenup on 24 February 2022 to the news of Russia’s full-scale invasionof Ukraine, they had been filled with horror at the human sufferingand with rage at the unjustifiable war. They had also realised thatthe European security order was being undermined by Russia,which was also breaching both the laws of war and internationalhumanitarian law. Dr Norlén was proud that the democracies ofEurope, the transatlantic partners and many other countries hadDr Andreas Norlén, Speaker of the Riksdag, Swedenacted swiftly and forcefully to impose sanctions on Russia for itsvicious war and to support the Ukrainian people’s brave efforts todefend their homeland. The Swedish government and parliamenthad also taken action. Decisions concerning supporting the Ukrain-ian defence, including military support, had been considered andadopted, and Sweden had been a strong advocate for ever strongersanctions against Russia. Less than three months after the outbreakof war, on 16 May 2022, the Swedish government made the historicdecision to apply for membership of NATO. The application hadvery solid support in the Swedish parliament, Dr Norlén explained.Nearly 90 % of the members were in favour – one of many signsthat this is a time of great change. This decision was, as the membersof the BSPC knew, taken in close dialogue with Finland. On 18May 2022, the government submitted its letter of intent to applyfor NATO membership at the same time as Finland’s.Opening of the Conference 7Dr Norlén stated that Russia’s invasion entailed challenges to West-ern society and to the Baltic Sea region. He wished to stress theimportance of parliaments that safeguarded and protected democ-racy, basic democratic values and international law. He believed thatdemocracy was a prerequisite for lasting global peace and security.Many of the tensions and conflicts one could see in the world in thepresent day, within countries and between countries, originatedfrom a lack of democracy, a lack of respect for freedom of speech,for minority rights, for the rule of law and for other fundamentalaspects of a democratic society. Since around 1980, a positive trendhad been witnessed with more and more states moving from author-itarian to democratic rule. However, during the last few years, thatpositive trend had been reversed, and a larger proportion of citizenson this planet were now living in authoritarian countries.This Conference addressed the important question of freedom ofexpression and free media. Not long ago, many had hoped that free-dom of expression was being strengthened in many countries wherethis previously had been limited. But also in this regard, the oppo-site development had been seen in many parts of the world – adevelopment that was deeply worrying. The media had a vital roleto play in promoting transparency and accountability and had to beable to operate in an environment free of fear. Threats to journalistswere a major threat to democracy.Dr Norlén said that in these troubled times, there had also been areminder of the importance of cross-border cooperation and parlia-mentary cooperation, solidarity and joint efforts to promote peaceand democracy. In the face of this, the democratic and parliamen-tary assignments were becoming increasingly important. The firstBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference had already been held in 1991,but promoting cross-border regional cooperation and workingtogether to achieve common goals continued to be as importanttoday as they had been more than 30 years earlier. Sharing bestpractices and working together to deal with common challengessuch as climate change or Baltic Sea environmental issues remainedon the agenda. And the need to preserve cooperation and protectdemocracy remained strong. Parliament was at the heart of democ-racy, the speaker underlined, just as the Baltic Sea was at the heartof their region. It was necessary to continue to protect and preserveboth.The current Swedish presidency went under the title SustainableDemocracy, pointing to democratic institutions, strong coopera-tion and environmental and social sustainability as cornerstones ofthe organisation. Another key issue for the Swedish presidency was8 Opening of the Conferenceyouth participation. For the second year in succession, a youthforum was being organised back to back with the Conference – theBaltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum. It was important to offeryoung people in the region the opportunity to engage with issuesfor a better Baltic Sea region. Young people were the future. Whenlistening to young people, Dr Norlén was always filled with hope.They had the engagement, the compassion and the courage to takeon the challenges that lay ahead. The theme of the Swedish presi-dency was also connected to the Swedish parliament’s commemora-tion and celebration of 100 years of democracy, which was nowapproaching its end. In 1918, the first decision had been taken inparliament to introduce universal and equal suffrage. The reformhad been carried out after a long struggle and intensive advocacyefforts for democracy in practice. Sweden was ending this celebra-tion in 2022, one hundred years after the first five female membersof parliament had taken their seats in the Riksdag.When reflecting upon historical events, Dr Norlén said, one tendedto take the outcome for granted. But the breakthrough for democ-racy had never been something that could be taken for granted – inhis country or in other countries. The democracy centennial hadserved as a reminder: Democratic values, participation, equalitybefore the law and trust in the democratic system were nothing thatone could take for granted. It was always a necessity to try to protectand develop their democratic systems. Russia’s war against Ukrainewas another stark reminder of this. On this note, Dr Norlén wishedthe BSPC a successful Conference with fruitful discussions anddebates. He welcomed the parliamentarians once more to Sweden.BSPC President Pyry Niemi thanked the speaker very much for hisimpressive and important contributions. He went on to introducehis dear friend, the esteemed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden,Speech by Ms Ann Linde, Minister of Foreign Affairsof SwedenMinister of Foreign Affairs Ann Linde thanked the BSPC for theopportunity to address them here on this day, against the extremelyserious backdrop of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified aggressionsagainst Ukraine. Sweden condemned Russia’s aggressions in thestrongest possible terms. It was a flagrant violation of internationallaw. Together with the international community, Sweden demandedthat Russia cease its military invasion immediately and uncondition-ally withdraw all forces and military equipment from the entire ter-ritory of Ukraine. Sweden stood in solidarity with Ukraine and itspeople. Their support to Ukrainian sovereignty, independence andOpening of the Conference 9Ms Ann Linde, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Swedenterritorial integrity was steadfast. They were appalled by the repeatedunacceptable attacks on civilians by Russian forces. The humanitar-ian disaster caused by Russia’s aggression was devastating. All viola-tions of international law had to be systematically documented andinvestigated and the perpetrators held accountable. Respect for thefundamental role and principles of international law lay at the coreof all international and regional cooperation. Through its action inUkraine, Russia had for the foreseeable future disqualified itself forvaluable opportunities in international cooperation, including in thecontext of the Baltic Sea parliamentary cooperation.The Western world’s joint political and practical support to Ukraine hadto continue, both during and after this war. Together with a wide coali-tion of countries, Sweden had already contributed with substantialhumanitarian aid as well as economic support and defence equipmentto Ukraine. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine went hand in hand withincreased repression within the country. Ms Linde was deeply worriedabout the further increased restrictions of freedom of expression andother human rights. It was abundantly clear that Russia’s state mediaoffered a distorted image and narrative of events not only in Ukraine butin the western world at large. The challenges to democracy and dangerto peace and security are not unique to Russia and our own region.Whenever respect for democratic principles is compromised, the risk ofarmed conflicts around the world increases. Regions where democraticgovernance is strong are more peaceful than other regions. Where therewas accountability, there were constraints for government use of vio-lence. Autocratic rulers had made sure that they were not bound bychecks and balances, such as free media and an outspoken civil societyor an independent judiciary or the risk of being voted out of office.10 Opening of the ConferenceTherefore, Minister Linde underlined, that democracies deliveredpeace while autocracies did not. It was thus of utmost importance thatdemocratic societies cooperated and protected their region’s demo-cratic institutions. It was a question of their survival as a free region, asfree nations, as free citizens. They had to unite behind those whosevoices had been silenced by the Russian invasion – free media, inde-pendent journalists and human rights defenders in Russia and war-af-fected areas in the region. In 2019, Sweden had launched a Drive forDemocracy as a foreign policy priority. Ms Linde strongly welcomedseeing that drive echoed across the Baltic Sea region. There could beno sustainable peace without democracy. Russia’s aggression againstUkraine had fundamentally changed the prospect for regional cooper-ation, now and for a long time to come. And this had happened at atime when climate change, a global pandemic and other borderlesschallenges had further increased the need for regional and interna-tional cooperation. The Council of the Baltic Sea States had an impor-tant role in bringing the citizens of its region closer together, workingagainst organised crime – including trafficking of human beings –,assisting the vulnerable women and children and strengthening civil-ian preparedness and response cooperation in the region. They weredetermined to continue this important work even after Russia’s deci-sion to leave the Council. The CBSS Action Plan which had beenfinalised during the Lithuanian presidency formed a solid basis for fur-ther concrete and focused work.Sweden saw three areas where there was a particular need, andindeed an opportunity to reinforce the cooperation: Firstly, directlylinked to the theme of this Conference, the CBSS had comparativeadvantages to support Ukraine – for example, on combating thetrafficking of human beings and protecting vulnerable women andchildren. Secondly, people-to-people cooperation, not least betweenthe young people in the Baltic Sea region. The democratic nationsshould meet the current challenges to international cooperation byfostering even more bonds between them by building long-termrelationships and increasing mutual understanding. The Baltic SeaYouth Platform was a valuable contribution to this end, and Swedenwas encouraging young people to take part in the Council’s work onall levels. The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum, being organ-ised for the second time, is a valuable opportunity for regionalbuilders of tomorrow to meet decision-makers of today. Thirdly, theenvironment: The Stockholm +50 United Nations Conference hadgiven them new impetus to accelerate the green transition of theirsociety. For the people of the Baltic Sea region, it was important toscale up action to reduce and decarbonise emissions, safeguard ahealthy Baltic Sea, increase cooperation on renewable energies andphase out the use of Russian gas, oil and coal as soon as possible.Opening of the Conference 11To conclude, Minister Linde pointed out that Russia had launchedan unprovoked attack and aggression against Ukraine, and theWestern world’s joint reaction to it clearly demonstrated thatregional cooperation between the region’s remaining states wasmore important than ever. Together, they had to continue to buildand develop their joint endeavour to conserve their freedom anddemocratic societies and increase mutual understanding by bring-ing the people of the Baltic Sea region closer together.BSPC President Pyry Niemi thanked Ms Linde very much forthese important and encouraging words. He then took the floorhimself.Presidential Address by BSPC President Pyry NiemiBSPC President Pyry Niemi mentioned that in his welcomingspeech the year before, he had referred to the difficult times theyhad been living in and that they had already done so for a longwhile because of the COVID-19 pandemic, together with therestrictions imposed to stop the spread of the virus. In August 2021,the vaccine had arrived, and all of them had been looking forwardto and hoping for better and brighter times. And now, here theywere – once again in challenging times, facing a brutal, cruel andhorrible war in Europe. Day by day, the attacks on Ukraine wereimposing a more dangerous threat to peace, stability and democracyacross Europe and the world, defying the rights and freedoms of allEuropeans. The year before, he had mentioned that he had beenvery proud of the work of the BSPC during the pandemic and howthey had continued their work and truly done their best for thefuture of the Baltic Sea region, not letting the pandemic interrupttheir intense cooperation and contacts. This year, he would like torepeat that: He was very proud of how steadfast and united they hadbeen, from their initial tackle of the horrifying situation. On 25February, together with Mr Schraps and Mr Bahr, the presidiumhad at once adjourned the meeting of the Standing Committee thathad been scheduled for 28 February. In a statement on 25 February,they had condemned in the strongest possible terms the completelyunjust and full-scale military attack by the Russian Federationagainst the sovereignty, independence and people of Ukraine. Theyhad appealed with all possible urgency to the Russian Federation toimmediately stop the aggressive armed force against countless civil-ian victims and arrive at peaceful solutions in compliance withinternational law. On 12 March, the heads of the BSPC delegationsof the parliaments repeated in the strongest possible terms theircondemnation of the completely unjust and full-scale brutal mili-tary attack and invasion by the Russian Federation against the inde-12 Opening of the ConferenceBSPC President Pyry Niemipendent people of Ukraine. They had also decided to freeze all theirrelations with the Russian parliaments. In April, the Standing Com-mittee had met in Warsaw, reaffirming the statement and decidingto continue to suspend the memberships of the Russian parliamentsas well as amending the BSPC’s Rules of Procedure to underline theBSPC’s democratic and peace-oriented core values and principlesbased on international law. Earlier this morning, that was exactlywhat they had done. For 31 years, the BSPC had been the platformfor cooperation, commitment, competence and political dialoguebetween parliaments, governments and civil society in the whole ofthe Baltic Sea region. Their main goal had been to overcome theCold War and to contribute to stability, peace and democracy in thewhole Baltic Sea region. The current situation with the brutal warin Europe had underlined the importance of continuing this fightfor peace and democracy. The BSPC had to remain to promote ademocratic development in their region.President Niemi pointed out that the present Swedish presidencywent under the headline Sustainable Democracy and had focusedon how to face common challenges in a changing world. Demo-cratic institutions, solid cross-border cooperation and environ-mental and social sustainability were cornerstones of the BSPC,preserving these had been their priority throughout the year.These priorities were also connected to the Swedish parliament’scommemoration and celebration of 100 years of democracy. 100years before, the Swedish parliament had decided to introduceuniversal and equal suffrage. After the election of 1921, fivewomen had entered the Riksdag, and this was when the RiksdagOpening of the Conference 13had finally achieved a system of democratic representation for thewhole population. This had been celebrated from 2018 to 2022with many different activities in the Riksdag. Mr Niemi pointedout that their speaker, Dr Andreas Norlén, had been very engagedand involved in these efforts for which the president extended hisgratitude. The celebration of 100 years of democracy, PresidentNiemi went on, was a reminder that the right to vote, to equalrights and democratic values was nothing that one could take forgranted. They needed to continually strive for democracy anddemocratic values every day.One of the core issues for the Swedish presidency had been trust inthe democratic system, inclusion, and participation. For this rea-son, Mr Niemi was very happy and proud to say that this Saturday,the BSPC had held an online Baltic Sea Parliamentary YouthForum, for the second year in a row back-to-back with the AnnualConference. About 60 young participants from 10 countries hadtaken part, some of whom were attending the Conference as observ-ers. The headline for this Conference was The Future of the BalticSea Region. He asked what was more important for the future thanthe young people in the region. The participants of the YouthForum had shown their engagement and commitment, and he waslooking forward to the conclusions later on that day.In November of the previous year, the BSPC had held their firstmeeting in the framework of the organisation for twenty months.During the meeting, they had discussed how to strengthen thecooperation with the Baltic Sea NGO Network and climate change.The Standing Committee had adopted a statement on the humani-tarian crisis at the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian border, voicingtheir concerns about the insufficient access for humanitarian organ-isations to provide basic humanitarian services to refugees andmigrants. At the Standing Committee meeting in Warsaw in April,the main issue had been the Russian invasion of Ukraine and theconsequence for both the Baltic Sea region as well as their futureparliamentary cooperation. During the meeting, they had also dis-cussed migration – more specifically, Ukrainian migration toPoland.President Niemi said that climate change and biodiversity had alsobeen at the top of the BSPC’s agenda throughout the year. The cur-rent working group chaired by his esteemed colleague, Ms CecilieTenfjord-Toftby, had continued to focus on how to protect theenvironment and how to safeguard the Baltic Sea and the biodiver-sity in the region. More would be said about the results of the work-ing group later on that day.14 Opening of the ConferenceFurther, the BSPC had further deepened their cooperation withpartner organisations at the executive and parliamentary levels. Thechairman of the Senior Officials of the Council of the Baltic SeaStates, under the Norwegian presidency, and the Director Generalof the CBSS secretariat had provided very valuable input at theStanding Committee meeting in Warsaw. The BSPC had been inclose contact with HELCOM whose chair under the current Ger-man presidency would give a speech later on during the Confer-ence. On the parliamentarian side, the BSPC had based their coop-eration with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean andsigned a memorandum of understanding with them. Mr Nieminoted that the president of the PAM was also at the Conference andwould speak later on. Traditionally, the BSPC was in permanentclose contact with the Nordic Council and the Baltic Assembly,marked by permanent bilateral contacts and discussions as well asparticipation in their assemblies and meetings. The results of theirwork were constantly fed into the BSPC’s work, and the presidentof the Baltic Assembly and the former president of the BSPC wouldalso chair this Conference’s general debate.The president mentioned that he had read somewhere that the Bal-tic Sea was not just a sea; rather, it was a bridge between neighbours.He believed this was very true. Their cooperation was to a largeextent built on concrete issues related to the Baltic Sea – the heartof this region. More than that, it was about political democratic dia-logue and an exchange between neighbours and friends. He expectedhis audience to agree with him when he said that the Russian inva-sion of Ukraine had wounded the work of the BSPC. The Confer-ence is not the same as it had been the year before. However, withtheir new strength and revised Rules of Procedure and their unitedambitions to continue to fight for peace and democracy as well asenvironmental sustainability, the BSPC is in many ways strongerthan before. They had maintained and intensified the parliamentarydimension of international cooperation in the Baltic Sea region.President Niemi once again welcomed the attendees to the Riksdagand to Stockholm. He was looking forward to fruitful and impor-tant and constructive discussions on this day and the next.First Session 15FIRST SESSIONPeaceful and reliable neighbour-liness and intense cooperation inthe Baltic Sea Region in times ofcrisis – how do we go forward?Chair: Mr Pyry Niemi, President of the BSPCCo-Chair: Mr Johannes Schraps, BSPC Vice PresidentMr Jan Eliasson,Former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations andFormer Minister for Foreign Affairs of SwedenBSPC President Pyry Niemi welcomed everyone again to the firstsession of the 31st BSPC. His dear colleague, Vice-President JohannesSchraps – always side by side, as both had also demonstrated at theyouth forum – and Mr Niemi would continue to chair together thisfirst session as well. The president would chair until the coffee break,at which point Mr Schraps would take over. He explained that thissession would focus on peaceful and reliable neighbourliness andintense cooperation in the Baltic Sea region in times of crisis, raisingthe question of how to go forward. In the opening session, they hadalready been honoured by the speeches of the speaker of the Riksdag16 First Sessionand the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs. In this session, theywould continue on that level. Mr Niemi was deeply honoured thatMr Jan Eliasson, the former deputy Secretary-General of theUnited Nations and former minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden,would give an incentive speech to the BSPC. This would be followedby addresses of the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs as currentpresident of the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the GermanMinister for Foreign Affairs as well as representatives of other parlia-mentary assemblies and BSPC observer organisations.The president pointed out that they were living through a funda-mental turning point – confronting them with the greatest chal-lenges of their generation and their consequences: first the pan-demic, now the cruel war in the middle of Europe, the likelihood ofan upcoming catastrophic global famine, and before that, alongsideit and in the future, the climate crisis and its effects becoming everstronger. Even though politicians had been discussing climatechange for decades, had been taking measures against it for decades,they were now realising that all that they have done and were doinghad not been and was not enough by far, and that climate changerequired a fundamental rethinking in everyone’s societies in order toprevent the worst in the long run.To see all this from an overall perspective, he considered it ideal tolisten to former UN Deputy Secretary-General and former SwedishForeign Minister Jan Eliasson and his perspective on the pressingchallenges of our times.Incentive Speech by Mr Jan Eliasson, former UNDeputy Secretary-General and former SwedishForeign MinisterMr Eliasson first joined the speaker of the Swedish parliament in wel-coming the BSPC attendees to Sweden at the best time of the year,with as much light as possible available. He noted he did not have toenlighten his listeners any more. He was very honoured to be invitedto speak to the BSPC at this crucial moment – in his view, a crucialmoment of contemporary history. The steps that politicians and par-liamentarians were taking would be of great significance not only fortheir countries but also for their region in the Baltic-Northern areaand moreover for Europe and the world, with their implications.He conveyed that all of them had woken up on 24 February 2022 in themorning with the horrible news about a case of brutal aggression wagedby Russia against an independent democratic country in Europe. Thiswas only hours away for all of them, he pointed out. Suddenly, the spec-First Session 17tre of war had come upon them in a completely unhistorical way. Didanyone need war of this nature, he wondered, in today’s world, with thechallenges already facing them. Of course, that was not the case. In thissituation, Mr Eliasson noted that all of them had been – and still were– impressed by Ukraine and its people in the way that they had met thisbrutality, the courage that they had exposed, the resistance that they hadmobilised, and the resilience that they had shown. To him, this had alsobecome a challenge for all of them, a challenge for them to show cour-age, to show resilience, to show resistance and standing by Ukraine inthis moment of crisis. He tasked his audience to ask themselves whatwas at stake. He answered that a number of things were at stake whichwere extremely important. First of all, there were the sovereignty andindependence of Ukraine. Secondly, the European security order wasaffected, including the strengthening of the Baltic-Nordic area. Mr Eli-asson noted that he had been a young diplomat in Helsinki in 1975; allthose principles had now been completely gone. He had also beenundersecretary and deputy secretary general of the UN, and the UNcharter was also being neglected, both in the span of use of force and innot pursuing a peaceful settlement of disputes.Jan Eliasson, former UN Deputy Secretary-General and formerSwedish Foreign MinisterThe third thing at stake was something offering good news, hebelieved, namely the cohesion and strength of the European Unionand of NATO. They had shown more unity than anybody had seenin a long time. He chuckled, explaining that this was the paradoxi-cal result of Putin’s aggression. The fourth thing at stake was therespect of international law and principles and norms for interna-tional cooperation. Connected to this was something one could fol-low in the news every day – and if one did not, as a former under-secretary for humanitarian affairs at the UN, he could explain theenormous effects on the food situation in the world. There was hun-18 First Sessionger and starvation, growing by the millions while the BSPC wasmeeting here in Stockholm. There were people paying 50 per centof their income for their food, and if there was an increase of 30 to40 per cent of food prices, one could imagine what this did to afamily like that. All of this, he summarised this aspect, was an out-come of this horrible, brutal, unnecessary war.Another matter at stake was basically – perhaps, in the long run, itwould prove the most important for the future – the standing ofdemocracy and also the standing of democracies. That was becausedemocracy was fighting an uphill battle in today’s world. Hebelieved people did not quite realise the backwards steps that couldbe seen both among great powers but also inside countries that hadauthoritarian rule and were turning rather quickly into totalitariansocieties. This trend had to be stopped, Mr Eliasson underlined. Apolarisation could be seen, both between countries and inside coun-tries. When looking at this whole list of what was at stake, it was apretty serious matter – and a serious agenda for all of them.For the people from the Baltic Sea region, they should look backat history as well and see what had united them in different peri-ods. That went back a very, very long time. The matters unitingthe people were extremely strong. First of all, there was geography;secondly, history; and then, there were the interests: economic,political, social. These also included the cooperation among civilsocieties. Today, more important than ever, there were the valuesthat they shared. He summarised: geography, history, interestsand values. This was pretty strong glue, he stressed. All of thiswent back a long time, he repeated, to the times of the HanseaticLeague, of Germany and some others around the Baltic Sea. It hadbeen a factor of great importance to the region. With the Polishfriends, Sweden had once been united under their royal families;the Vasa castles in Sweden were very similar to the Vasa castle inWarsaw. The Nordic countries had been united in different unions,although sometimes, they had also had their battles, even militaryones, a long, long time ago. They had lived through this horriblenightmare of history between 1930 and 1945, in different ways.To Mr Eliasson, that represented the darkest period of humanhistory. If one added up the gulags of Stalinism and the camps inSiberia and the victims of fascism both in Asia and Europe, notleast Germany – unfortunately -, and then added that up to theSecond World War killing 50 million people, half of them civil-ians – for the first time in history.After all of that, the world had seen the light: the UN charter, theUN itself, the Declaration on Human Rights, the Refugee Conven-First Session 19tion, the Geneva Conventions. All of this had been done to showanother direction. For some of the people here, that was not a gooddirection – the Baltic states had paid the price with the Soviet occu-pation, and there had been the Cold War period which had actedalmost as a wet blanket on the forces of freedom and democracy.Then, the Wall had come tumbling down in 1989, and hopes hadbeen rising. Fortunately, some of the people here had gained theindependence that they should have had from the beginning. Thathad led to a period of hope and expansion of possibilities. That waswhy looking back at this history with its ups and downs of theircooperation and the possibilities of influence as well as their futureand now seeing the Russian move changing everything in such adrastic manner – or trying to do so –, that meant they had to lookinto what they could do from this situation.Mr Eliasson wished to try to mobilise a few positive factors thatcould be taken into account and built on apropos the title of thissession. They had now the possibilities – the Nordic and Baltic Seacountries – to strengthen their role in communities, in organisa-tions like the European Union, like NATO, like the OSCE, like theUN – because they were united more than ever now by interests andmore importantly values. They could prove the power of values nowmore solidly than ever. Sweden and Finland had chosen the road ofapplying for membership in NATO which meant that all the fiveNordic countries would be having the same security policies, basi-cally. That would mean that they could move much more actively,also in matters of strategic significance like the Arctic area. There,the five Nordic countries had a tremendous interest and also affin-ity, even more so or at least of the same magnitude as Russia. Fur-thermore, for all of them to see the potential that lay in all of theircooperation, because they were now united by – again – interestsand values, apart from history and geography.As a former deputy secretary of the UN, Mr Eliasson appealed tohis audience to also seize this opportunity of strengthening multi-lateralism. He thought there were three major battles in the worldat this point: first of all, the existential issue of climate crisis whichhad unfortunately moved into the background because of theUkraine aggression; secondly, the battle for democracy that he hadjust mentioned; thirdly, the fight for international cooperation.That cooperation had been threatened by external and internalforces in their societies. Now, though, there was a chance of takingon this battle and building on a very broad and deep basis – namelythat of the BSPC, of parliamentary support, of democracy, of peo-ple-to-people contacts, of popular support. All of them had popularsupport for their cooperation, and they should now drive it for-20 First Sessionward. Not least as a way of protesting the aggression of Russia, theyshould prove the dynamics of their society.Mr Eliasson described this as his message and his great privilege ofconveying it to you. He thanked them again for gathering in Stock-holm, adding that he had just published a book in Sweden. The lastsentence of that book, in spite of the bad news all around them, saidthat the most important word in the world today was “together”. Ifone took that word seriously and saw the power and strength of“together” among nations and peoples who had their heart andtheir mind set on democracy, then they were a very strong force,and they should convey that to their peoples and share a little bitmore optimism and hope for the future than they had had in thelast few months. With that, he concluded his speech.President Pyry Niemi thanked Mr Eliasson for his impressive andinspiring speech. Before opening the floor for comments and ques-tions, he noted that the first time he had met Mr Eliasson, that hadbeen at the UN when the latter had worked as deputy general secre-tary. Mr Niemi remembered one thing the elder politician had shownto the ones attending the meeting room that day, something that MrEliasson had worn in his back pocket, slightly worn out but stillreadable. He asked the guest speaker to comment on that. The presi-dent added a second question, considering that Mr Eliasson hadnegotiated for peace many times and had met very strange and some-times very hard people, autocratic leaders and so on. Mr Niemi won-dered what his positive message during this crisis was to the BSPC,referring to finding sustainable peace in Europe in the nearest future.Mr Eliasson explained that he had used the UN Charter as a wayto send a message of the power of the norms and rules and princi-ples. Regretfully, he had forgotten it this morning, noting that heshould have brought it along, in light of the friendship with MrNiemi and their meetings in New York. What he had alwaysbrought up – and what he considered of interest to the BSPC – wasto remind people of the first three words of the UN Charter. Thesefirst three words were, “We, the peoples”. It was not “We, the gov-ernments”. He pointed out that he had also been a minister once, atwhich time he had of course stressed the role of governments. Still,it was “We, the peoples” – in other words, it was the parliamentari-ans and the people behind them. If an international organisationdid not work in the spirit of helping the individuals, of helping peo-ple in need – whether it was peace, development or human rights -,then that organisation had lost its compass, in his view. That waswhy he had taken that charter around with him, to remind peopleand to underline the importance of their work.First Session 21As for the second question, Mr Eliasson said they could keep unity.In his view, unity – or the word “together” as he had concluded hispresentation – was absolutely crucial. It had been a healthy reminderof the importance of unity when one looked at how the EuropeanUnion and NATO had come together. In a moment of crisis, thatwas when one was tested. As of this point, it seemed that the Euro-pean Union and NATO had stood up to the test. In addition, it wasalso necessary to take the consequence of the solidarity they wereexpressing in their speeches. That meant the support given toUkraine which had to be tenacious and had to be consistent. Theymust not give up, he underlined, because the Ukrainian people cer-tainly were not giving up. That was going to be a test for them.Democracies were always criticised by authoritarian states for nothaving a long-term strategy. Mr Eliasson called for the democraciesto prove the contrary. In this case, with democracy at stake, theyshould stick to their principles and to their support. Speaking of theBSPC, he pointed out that the organisation already had a tremen-dously impressive agenda – environment, education and all the ele-ments in there. He was sure the members of the BSPC could under-stand the list he had presented, and that was his encouragement tothem to understand that list, to take advantage of their commoninterests and to build on their common values. That gave them tre-mendous potential. Then, the parliamentarians would be connect-ing this to their own people. The speaker said that their nation’ssupport for the Nordic and Baltic cooperation, in the case of Swe-den, was free of problems. If there was a referendum on EU mem-bership, there would be none needed for the kind of support thatNordic-Baltic Sea countries could extend. Mr Eliasson encouragedthe BSPC to go on and build on what they had already achieved –taking advantage of the crisis that was existing currently and chan-nelling the energy from that in a positive rather than a negative andfearful direction.As President Niemi gave the floor to the Norwegian representative,he picked up on Mr Eliasson’s comment regarding a referendumand – somewhat in jest – hoped that Norway would hold a referen-dum on the European Union in the near future.Mr Himanshu Gulati thanked Mr Eliasson for the introductoryremarks but also the Swedish presidency for hosting the BSPC inthe Swedish parliament. Mr Gulati referred to Sweden and Finlandnow bidding to join NATO, which the Norwegian side appreciatedvery much. He asked Mr Eliasson how the dynamics had changedand what other changes he saw coming up to previously establishedfacts and borders. He wished to know what other paradigm changesthere might be in the security situation.22 First SessionMr Eliasson asked for specification if he meant the Swedish policiesor in the policies of the region. Mr Himanshu clarified that he wasinterested in the general view of changes that they had previouslynot allowed themselves to discuss but could now see as possible inthe European security issues. Mr Eliasson noted that he had men-tioned one area where he believed the Nordic countries in particu-lar had a tremendous potential: That was the future of the Arctic.The Arctic could be a playground for military interests and powerinterests. It already was in a way – but in a rather quiet and subduedmanner. He knew that Norway, Denmark and Iceland had animmediate vicinity to the Arctic area. He believed it important thatthey maintain some principles for the policies vis-à-vis the Arctic.The environmental concerns were absolutely crucial for that area,and, of course, so were the risks related to militarisation of that areaas well as the exploitation of resources. That was another reason foreconomic potential but also for rivalry and crises and confronta-tion. This was just one area where Mr Eliasson thought one couldidentify changes. Primarily the Baltic Sea/Nordic countries shouldsee that they were now unified in their interests and values. Whenone was unified in their interests and values, one could play a muchlarger role vis-à-vis the European Union and NATO. He remem-bered from his time as foreign minister of Sweden how happy hehad been that the three Baltic States were entering the EuropeanUnion in 2004. The five Nordic ministers had met with the threeBaltic foreign ministers before the European Union meetings, sothey were eight nations gathering their views and ideas and support-ing each other at the meeting. The BSPC had a similar opportunityat this point, with the common security policies on all the countriesaround the Baltic Sea. There was a tremendous opportunity to playthe same role by deciding what could be the common position vis-à-vis the EU and NATO. He did not wish to go into details but wassure that the attendees’ imaginative approaches and discussionscould find out new areas to pursue.Ms Bryndís Haraldsdóttir thanked Mr Eliasson for a very inspir-ing speech. She also appreciated his earlier answer regarding theArctic. Coming from Iceland, she apologised for shifting the focusaway from the Baltic Sea, but in her mind, it was very important forall of them – both those living in the Arctic and everyone else. Withrespect to the security aspect, she noted that Iceland had been hop-ing for low tensions in the Arctic. That was very important, but thetension was definitely going up. As much as she welcomed Swedenand Finland into NATO – and that was highly important in herview -, that also changed the dynamics in the Arctic Council wherethey had now all-NATO nations on the one hand and Russia on theother. In the BSPC, they had suspended Russia from the organisa-First Session 23tion – and she underlined her agreement with that decision. Shewondered, though, if Mr Eliasson saw a future in the Arctic Coun-cil and how that future could be possible, whether there would everbe the opportunity to work again with Russia.Mr Eliasson conceded that he was not quite familiar with the dif-ferent moves, but he believed it important that the Arctic shouldnot be left without international observation, so to speak. At thispoint, no work was being done in the Arctic Council, as far as heknew. He did not question the wisdom of those who had made thisdecision. However, one should consider the importance of settinginternational rules and principles at work for the region. If one leftit to individual nations’ actions – in this case a nation with a largefrontier to the whole Baltic area and with a tremendous potential –to further their own national interests, then something might belost in the end, he cautioned. Therefore, he advised a rather activeapproach by the other members of the Arctic Council. Here, he wasspeaking very much to the Nordic countries where he had played arole himself over the years, to make sure that they were regainingcountries – not literally – but rather taking back the agenda. Envi-ronmental responsibility had to go back on the agenda as well asavoiding militarisation and taking care of rural resources in a wiseand long-term manner. Therefore, he advised them to take advan-tage of this moment which was driven by the sad facts of the Ukrainewar. Still, one could seek to take the positive side from this, to chan-nel the energy in a positive direction.Vice-President Johannes Schraps also thanked Mr Eliasson for thevery impressive overview of the challenges all of them were facingduring these difficult times and also challenges that had been dis-cussed at the Standing Committee meetings and would be discussedagain during the Conference. He wished to add to the excellentremarks of their Icelandic colleague about multilateralism. Asidefrom strengthening multilateralism in their own institutions as inthe BSPC, Mr Schraps asked Mr Eliasson whether he believed thatspeechlessness could be overcome in the long term. He consideredit dangerous, aside from having clear signs in such situations as war,not to speak with certain actors that denied being actors in a multi-lateral framework. He conceded that this was a difficult questionbut hoped the speaker would have some thoughts on this topic.Mr Eliasson noted that he had been deputy secretary general of theUN. There, they had the principle of universality. Sometimes,though, he even felt a personal loss of pride when there were nationsworking in the Human Rights Council which had very little respectfor human rights. He said he would not interfere in any of the BSPC’s24 First Sessionwork, but there had to be a very strong reactions to a move of extraor-dinary aggressive character. It was for all organisations to considerhow to establish context to improve conditions in the end. In theUN, they had had no choice. He was having meetings with SaddamHussein, he had been mediating with Ghaddafi, with lots of shadyfigures, and that had been because they had been the ones decidingthe futures of these countries and the wars that they were involved in.So, it was necessary to strike a balance between two aspects: On theone hand, one had to show that the values uniting them were soimportant that one was not able to continue discussions within thefamily if the other side was violating these values and principles; onthe other hand, there were stark realities to consider on some days.Accordingly, these two sides meant there had to be changes that per-haps would, in the long run, serve their own nation and the hopethat democracy and human rights would prevail even in those coun-tries. He conceded that this was a very vague answer to a rather com-plex question, but he believed all of them had to keep in the back oftheir minds how they would reach the people in the end. This alsoapplied to “We, the peoples” of the UN, considering the welfare andquality of life for the people concerned. He himself had been raisedwith a global outlook, that one should see things in the internationalcontext. Again, though, it was a very sensitive balance to strike.Mr Kai Mykkänen of Finland thanked Mr Eliasson for his excel-lent remarks and historical outlook. He was expecting – now thatFinland and Sweden were joining NATO in the near future – thattheir military cooperation with the Baltic States would changequite heavily. Sweden and Finland would also have a responsibil-ity towards the defence architecture of the Baltic States. He won-dered how Mr Eliasson thought about this after knowing the cli-mate of the Baltic Sea for many decades from many positions. MrMykkänen asked if this could affect the larger picture of foreignsecurity from Stockholm and Helsinki. He noted that his home-land was starting to feel like a true member of the family, alsotogether with the Baltic States. Furthermore, he spoke about theNordic and the Baltic State which were together in this forum,i.e., the BSPC, as well as other organisations. Still, there was nofull unity in the complete sense. Now, though, defence questionswere gaining more importance, and Finland and Sweden wouldbe taking a more powerful role together with the Baltic States inthat aspect as well. He wondered how much this could mean forthe broader cooperation as well.Prof Jānis Vucāns of Latvia thanked Mr Eliasson for his great speechand also for such great answers to previous questions. His own ques-tion was somewhat similar to preceding ones. Mr Eliasson hadFirst Session 25mentioned “together”, this very important word, but “together”during peacetime and “together” during wartime were a little bitdifferent in his mind. The title of the BSPC Conference mentionedstrong democracy, peace, sustainable development and some otherwords. During peacetime, “together”, they were speaking about sus-tainable development, and it was very easy to go in a common way.But during wartime, when some states and territories were morevulnerable than other ones, sometimes, this “together” had anothermeaning: Together, they needed protection for everything in theirarea. Related to that, he wondered if Mr Eliasson had any recom-mendations for the BSPC how to protect “together” the BalticStates, the Nordic countries and the whole region around the BalticSea as well as Europe altogether during wartime.Mr Kacper Płażyński offered more of a comment rather than aquestion. Perhaps Mr Eliasson would agree. Regarding the topic of“together”, Mr Płażyński was sure that Europe – if not 100 %united – would be too weak to do anything on different matters.However, under current circumstances – namely the Russian attackon Ukraine -, he saw them as halfway towards that goal. It was nec-essary to remember all these policy and security architectures, alsoincluding the Arctic, won’t be manageable in a way that the Westwould understand until the end of this new era of a Cold War. ThisCold War would end after the defeat of Russia. If there should besome kind of treaty, if they would start to bargain with Ukraine’sterritory, the conflict would just go on and on. It would cost theWest not just the high values of European countries but also a lot ofmoney. Inflation would last. The lack of security would be verymuch in the heart of their people, especially on the eastern bordersof NATO. So, Mr Płażyński saw it as necessary to do more. He alsosaw that as obvious. If they were to stay at the place they were rightnow, this homeopathic transfer of heavy weapons to Ukraine, thisCold War would just last. The inflation would be very high. Anybuilding of sustainable architecture in the future would just not bepossible. When talking about being together, he said that one couldcall them being together, but he really viewed the European coun-tries only as halfway united. He said one should think about trans-ferring to Ukraine big, heavy weapons for those people to be able tonot only defend themselves but also defeat the Russians because ifthey did not, the Cold War would just last and last for many, manyyears in the future. He added that Putin had the support of the Rus-sian people, so that it was not Putin’s war. Even if there would be achange in the cabinet of the Kremlin, he cautioned that it might notchange anything in the end. Therefore, he asked yet again for heavyweapons to be sent to Ukraine. Without that, the war would justlast for many, many years in the future.26 First SessionMr Eliasson first conveyed to his Finnish friend his – and Sweden’s– great appreciation of the statement by President Niinistö the daybefore when he had said that Finland would only join NATOtogether with Sweden. He likened the two countries to two Siamesetwins entering NATO. It had been quite a relief in the debate thathad dominated Sweden recently. That was very statesman-like and astatement in style for the president that Mr Eliasson very muchappreciated. He did not view it as such a drastic step in supportingthe Baltic States militarily. Even during Sweden’s policy of neutral-ity and staying out of alliances, he as then deputy foreign ministerand cabinet secretary had been taking decisions on sending militarysurplus to the newly independent Baltic States. Unfortunately, theyhad drawn down a bit too much of the Swedish defence in the1990s, in contrast to Finland. But they had donated a lot of thismatériel and had also trained a lot of personnel in the Baltic Coun-tries, in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This had been quite a bit ofmilitary cooperation with the Baltic States. The most memories hehad which were related to this was how they had fought verystrongly for European Union membership for all three Baltic Statesat once. It had not been evident. There had been those who had sug-gested that one could start with one country, and then the otherswould follow. There had been warnings against that. Mr Eliassonremembered himself arguing with European Union countries aboutthis, that all three should come in at the same time. They wouldhave equal positions then. Furthermore, he had argued that the EUwas taking risks by having Russian influence exercised on the othertwo which had not yet entered. Coming back to the point at hand,the speaker underlined that there had been a strong security compo-nent in Sweden’s relationship with the Baltic States. Now, with thestep taken by Finland and Sweden, it was evident that they wouldbe accepting Article Five of the NATO charter and that they woulddo whatever they could in their capacities. These, he noted, variedbetween the two countries. Finland had a greater conventionalcomponent and more manpower. Sweden, on the other hand, hadsome technology that they could contribute. The whole intentionwas for them to show the Baltic countries that the former were atthe latter’s side. The statements made by the Baltic governments andparliaments to Sweden and Finland were important as the BalticStates had been the first to ratify the accession candidates. The latterhad been the strongest ever in supporting the Swedish and Finnishmoves. Summarising this, he called the present development a newquality dimension but not new in general. There had been this rela-tionship from the beginning, and they had done so from the verystart of the independence of the three Baltic States. Moreover,though, it was a great addition for them on the Baltic stage to havePoland and Germany – and by the way also the local parliaments –First Session 27present here today, showing the popular support. He pointed toGermany and its role in the European Union which he expected tocontinue to be very strong in the future, and the same applied toNATO with its enhanced capacity. Baltic cooperation like this one– the BSPC – created more and more strength. When he analysedtheir situation from his perspective – retired from politics and diplo-macy –, he saw that the BSPC held a tremendous potential and thatthat could be used in this moment when they were a bit depressedby the realities from Ukraine.Mr Eliasson proceeded to the second question. It was obvious thatthere was a difference between the notion of being together in peaceand in wartime. However, he pointed out that he belonged to a dip-lomatic school which took words seriously. Put another way, whatone said during peacetime must be translated into what one meantduring a time of crisis. That was really a test not only of diplomacyand credibility of governance, but it was also a matter of supportingthe strength of democracy. They should stick to what they said inpeacetime. The principles had to be weighed carefully, and thewords had to be weighed carefully because they had to be kept.They were living in a world where the borderline between lies andtruth was unfortunately very fuzzy and not clear. There was eventalk about facts and alternative facts, and there was this polarisationwhere language was losing its meaning. That was very dangerous, hestressed. Therefore, one had to be very clear that what you did in themost relaxed circumstances must stand the test of the time of crisis.He hoped that they would not be coming to this stage. But whenwar broke out, they had to remember what they had said duringpeacetime.He moved on to say that the philosophical reflections of MrPłażyński were correct. The very introduction of his statement hadbeen to remember to stick to the resistance and resilience that wasnecessary now. He agreed that this situation could prove a very longhaul and a very long test. They were already faced by dilemmas: Ifthe Russian aggression was not met with credible reactions of a mil-itary nature, then Russia’s goal would be met. On the other hand, ifone entered the field, the escalation mechanisms would start towork. Mr Eliasson noted that he had worked with six wars in medi-ation himself. When the escalation started, then there was a mutualprocess where each was increasing the stakes. That led to the risk offurther expansion of the conflict outside its current borders. Thatwas a dilemma one had to face. Mr Eliasson underlined that he wasin the business of diplomacy. His whole life had been concernedwith mediating and working with peaceful settlements. Of course,when there was a negotiation, there was often the question of com-28 First Sessionpromises. But when it came to compromises in this case, they con-cerned the existential situation for a nation or a nation faced withgiving out parts of their own territory. And then, it would becomeclear that this meant a complete violation of international lawbecause another nation had been able to bite off a piece of your ter-ritory. Accordingly, there was a big dilemma: The matter was abouthow to make sure that a peaceful settlement was one that corre-sponded to international law. That was in this situation extremelycomplicated due to the goals defined by both the Russians and –understandably – the Ukrainian people and government. Thisdilemma came back to the points made by Mr Płażyński and byMr Eliasson, that this could be a long war and crisis, requiring a lotof resistance and resilience but also resources, even in economicterms. Basically, it was also a moral issue, Mr Eliasson said. Theywere right in the midst of it, and he voiced his hope that these forcesthat reacted against this horrible aggression – both forces interna-tionally and even, in the end, inside Russia – would grow in impor-tance and erode and take away the aggressive nature of the presentstage. Otherwise, they were in for a long haul and a long test of theirstrength and resistance against this aggression.President Niemi thanked Mr Eliasson for his impressive speechand analysis, remarks, comments. The BSPC was very proud tohave welcomed him to their Conference. They were very happy thatMr Eliasson had been able to take some time off for them. It wasimpressive. His career had been successful for so many years, and hehad also written a book. Mr Niemi asked him for the title of hisnewest book.Mr Eliasson responded that it was called “The Words and Actions”in Swedish.Mr Niemi pointed out that the former Swedish prime minister, MrStefan Löfven, had attended the Baltic Sea Youth Forum thepreceding Saturday, at which occasion he had said that they had totalk peace, think peace and act for peace. Given Mr Löfven’s con-nections to Mr Eliasson, Mr Niemi suspected with a smile that theformer had probably taken them from the latter. The presidentappreciated Mr Löfven’s contribution, noting that they had had theformer prime minister at the Youth Forum, and now the formerminister of foreign affairs and deputy secretary general of the UNhere on this occasion. Mr Niemi thanked Mr Eliasson again.President Niemi noted that he would be handing the chair of themeeting over to Vice-President Johannes Schraps shortly. First,though, he offered the reminder that the Standing CommitteeFirst Session 29would hold a short meeting in the afternoon, concerning thechanges to paragraphs 10 and 11 in the Rules of Procedure. Withthat, he passed on the chair.Mr Schraps thanked Mr Niemi and offered a warm welcome fromhis side to the Conference attendees. Picking up from the impres-sive speech and discussion by and with Mr Eliasson, he added thatthis session would focus on the BSPC work in general as well astheir values and the current fundamental challenges. He was excitedabout the speeches they would listen to and hoped that there wouldbe an intense discussion after them as well. As mentioned before,there would now be two video messages. The first was from MsAnniken Huitfeldt, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway and rep-resenting the Norwegian presidency of the CBSS from 2021 to2022. The following message was from Ms Annalena Baerbock,Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs in Germany, for the upcomingpresidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. Both ministerscould not manage to attend on this day; nevertheless, it had beenvery important for them to address the BSPC. Therefore, he wasvery grateful that they had received these video messages from thesetwo foreign ministers. Afterwards, there would be time for furthercomments and remarks on the speeches they would hear. If therewere any questions, particularly concerning the CBSS and the Nor-wegian presidency – outgoing until the end of June 2022 – orregarding the CBSS Ministerial Session in Kristiansand that hadjust taken place a few days earlier – including the Kristiansand Dec-laration announced there –, Mr Schraps invited the audience tobring forward these questions. The current chairman of the CBSSSenior Officials from the Norwegian presidency, Mr Olav Berstad,who had already briefed the BSPC Standing Committee in Warsaw,was in attendance and available to answer any questions. Vice-Pres-ident Schraps used this opportunity to welcome not just Mr Ber-stad but also the Deputy Director General of the CBSS Secretariat,Mr Bernd Hemingway, and the whole team of the CBSS. MrSchraps thanked them for joining the BSPC, opining that it was agood tradition for the BSPC to have close connections to the CBSS.30 First SessionSpeech by Ms Anniken Huitfeldt, Minister of ForeignAffairs, NorwayMs Huitfeldt thanked the Baltic Sea parliamentarians for invitingher to the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. The Russian war ofaggression against Ukraine had changed the map of Europe andwould have long-lasting effects on European security and economyas well as the well-being of the European population. Ukrainewould need their constant and intensive support in the time tocome. Seeing that they were hoping to welcome Finland and Swe-den as members of NATO, that would further strengthen Europe’scommon security. The war came in the middle of Norway’s presi-dency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States. On 3 March, themembers had decided to suspend Russia from the Council. Russiahad now withdrawn its membership. By doing so, they had rejectedthe post-Cold War to both lateral and regional cooperation. Minis-ter Huitfeldt welcomed the BSPC’s own suspension of the Russianmember assemblies. They were standing together, parliamentariansand governments. Their opposition to Russia’s illegal aggression hadbecome even stronger. Suspending Russia had allowed the rest ofthem to move forward. They valued the work of the ParliamentaryConference. The BSPC was tackling issues affecting the daily livesof the Baltic citizens. Both governments and parliamentarianswould continue to cooperate and develop the region.Anniken Huitfeldt, Minister of Foreign Affairs, NorwayThe minister noted that she had had the pleasure to host the Coun-cil Meeting in Kristiansand in May. The Kristiansand Declarationstated that Russia bore full responsibility for the war. The foreignministers had acknowledged Ukraine’s enormous suffering and sac-rifice in defence of their sovereignty and freedom. Ukraine was anFirst Session 31observer state to the Council of the Baltic Sea States. The regionalnetworks against trafficking in human beings, for the protection ofvulnerable children and the civil protection network were active intheir support of the Ukrainian refugees. Ms Huitfeldt hoped thatUkraine could join these and other networks when conditionswould permit. The ministers had promised to continue to standwith Ukraine. Europe had risen from ashes before. They would helpUkraine rise again.Even as a war was raging in Ukraine, Minister Huitfeldt said, theyhad to continue to address other critical issues. The Baltic Sea regionhad to remain globally competitive and had to remain a good placeto live for its citizens. As they were putting the COVID-19 pan-demic behind them, Europe had to be prepared to tackle new chal-lenges to public health and well-being. But even so, they had toensure that facts and reason prevailed. Increased global tensions,high energy and food prices, perhaps even food shortages – Russiawas trying to pin the blame on Europe. That was a fiction. But theconcerns were real. The countries in the Baltic Sea region andEurope as a whole had to engage globally to lessen the impact finally.The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference had marked its 30th anni-versary in the preceding year, the minister pointed out. This year theCouncil of the Baltic Sea States also turned 30. They should beproud of their achievements in the region. Integration, cooperationhad accelerated the region’s rapid development. The green and dig-ital transformation represented the next step. As stated in the Kris-tiansand Declaration, the European Green Deal and REPower EUwould provide speed and direction. Norway would soon pass thebaton to the incoming German presidency. Ms Huitfeldt wishedher colleague, Ms Annalena Baerbock, every success in her task.Speech by Ms Annalena Baerbock, Federal Ministerfor Foreign Affairs, GermanyMs Baerbock began by recalling the time she had been in Kris-tiansand in the previous month. Back then, some people on Twitterand Facebook had asked what the German Foreign Minister wasdoing in Norway and what the Council of the Baltic Sea States wasin the first place. They had been wondering why she was in Norwaywhile a war was raging in Ukraine. In all honesty, she had also askedherself what the Council of the Baltic Sea States was in the firstplace. For a long time, it had not been well known and served asmore of a soft power instrument. But in these times, nine yearssince its Foreign Ministers had last met in person, it was in factmore important than ever, Ms Baerbock asserted. The reason for32 First SessionAnnalena Baerbock, Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Germanythat was that common security was at stake in the Baltic Sea region,too. For a long time, people here had relied on cooperation withRussia. But Russia’s war of aggression marked a watershed for theregion.She pointed out that Sweden and Finland were on a path to NATOmembership – and that Germany was doing their utmost to sup-port them in this. Within the Council of the Baltic Sea States,meanwhile, the memberships of Russia and Belarus had been sus-pended. Minister Baerbock asked what this new reality meant forregional cooperation – and for the future of the Council. It was herfirm belief that all democratic Baltic Sea states had to stand togethernow more than ever – and therefore, they needed the Council of theBaltic Sea States now more than ever. Thus, the minister wasdelighted that the Federal Republic of Germany would be takingover the Presidency of the Council from 1 July.For many Germans, and, so she believed, for many others livingthere, the Baltic Sea was first and foremost a holiday destination:strolls along the beach on Rügen and Öland, city breaks in Helsinkiand Riga. But at the same time, it was clear that this region was stra-tegically important – and held enormous potential, for example interms of our energy supply.The German federal government had therefore set three prioritiesfor their presidency: Firstly, they wanted to massively expand off-shore wind power in the Baltic Sea. What worked in the North Seawould also work in the Baltic. Together with Denmark, Germanywould organise a Baltic Offshore Forum with stakeholders from thepublic and private sectors to initiate concrete wind power projects.First Session 33Minister Baerbock underlined that Russia’s aggression had shownthat climate policy and the energy transition were also issues ofsecurity policy – and wind power from the Baltic Sea could help allthe democratic countries around its shores to live without fossilenergy from Russia in the future.Secondly, the German presidency expand the Council’s youth work.Because young people had to have a seat at the table when it cameto their future in our region. Therefore, the Baltic Sea Youth Plat-form would be turned into a permanent institution, so that it couldcontinue to support youth parliaments and discussion and exchangebetween young people. In the coming year, the CBSS would hold aYouth Ministerial Meeting with young delegates in the run-up tothe Ministerial Session of the Council, so that they could draw upideas on the future of the Baltic Sea region: on digitalisation, on theclimate crisis and the green transition.At the same time, the minister explained that Germany also wanted toinvest in very concrete terms in the security of everyone who lived andworked in the Baltic Sea region. And that brought her to the third pri-ority of our presidency: There was a ticking time bomb at the bottomof the Baltic Sea, which they wanted to defuse: munitions from pastwars. The seabed was strewn with up to 400,000 tonnes of conven-tional explosives and around 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons. MsBaerbock noted that this was roughly equivalent to the total load of11,000 articulated lorries – representing a deadly threat to the envi-ronment and life in the sea. During the German presidency, theywould therefore look for ways to accelerate the recovery of these muni-tions, bringing together relevant experts as a first step.The bombs, mines and sunken warships at the bottom of the BalticSea showed that wars and their consequences would often reverber-ate for decades afterwards. It was clear that this would be true ofRussia’s war against Ukraine, too. It would mark Europe for a gen-eration. That was what made it so important for all democraticstates to now stand together in a region like the Baltic. This, in turn,was why the Council of the Baltic Sea States was necessary – and itwas what the German presidency stood for this year.She thanked the Conference very much and voiced her hope theywould enjoy productive discussions.Vice-President Schraps offered many thanks to both ministers forthese very strong statements, from the outgoing Norwegian and theincoming German presidency of the CBSS. He opened the floor forcomments, statements or questions.34 First SessionAs none were proffered, Mr Schraps wished to address Mr Berstadas he was present and could inform the Conference about the Kris-tiansand Declaration. This was also in view of the discussions of theprevious day in the Standing Committee about one of the prioritiesof the incoming German presidency. Apart from the announcementof the Federal Foreign Minister, Ms Annalena Baerbock, that oneof the priorities of the German CBSS presidency would be the sea-dumped ammunitions – which had also been a very importanttopic in the BSPC’s discussions in the last years -, Mr Schraps askedMr Berstad if that issue had already been deepened during theCBSS Ministerial Meeting in Kristiansand. Perhaps Mr Berstadcould provide some insights on this topic.Short Address by Mr Olav Berstad, Chairman of theCBSS Senior OfficialsMr Olav Berstad, chairman of the CBSS Senior Officials, began bythanking the BSPC for inviting him as well to the Conference.Together with many of his colleagues in attendance, he had beenpresent at the Kristiansand meeting. As Minister Baerbock hadmentioned, this had been the first ministerial meeting in the Coun-cil for nine years. These meetings had basically been suspended –although they had not used that word – since Russia’s first violationof Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity in2014. As was recognised now, the war against Ukraine had notstarted on 24 February 2022 or even with the declaration of Russia’ssupport for the independence of the so-called breakaway republicson 21 February. Instead, it had begun in 2014. Therefore, this meet-ing had been historic. As mentioned before, Russia had been sus-pended from the CBSS on 3 March 2022. In the declaration by theother members of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the condi-tions for resumption of relations had also been clearly stated. Sub-sequently, Russia had withdrawn of its own volition on 17 May2022. As Minister Huitfeldt had said, it was difficult or impossibleto interpret this otherwise than Russia having removed itself fromobserving and adhering to the rules of international, regional andmultilateral cooperation which had been at the core of their rela-tions since the end of the Cold War. The Kristiansand Declarationpointed to these facts, putting all the responsibility for what hadhappened and the catastrophic effects of the war in Ukraine on Rus-sia. At the same time, blame was also cast on Belarus in its enablingrole. Mr Berstad also wished to highlight what was said in the Dec-laration regarding accountability, namely, that a violation of inter-national law of this type meant there could not be any impunity forwar crimes. He considered this one of the stronger parts of the Dec-laration.First Session 35Mr Olav Berstad, Chairman of the CBSS Senior OfficialsIn addition, there was the recognition of the 30th anniversary of theCBSS and the amazing progress the region had experienced since1992. In the Kristiansand Declaration, there was also a strong refer-ence to the main product of the Lithuanian presidency – precedingNorway’s –, namely the Vilnius II Declaration. Here, Mr Berstadreferred to Mr Jan Eliasson’s earlier comment that the words thatone had committed to had to really mean something. The Vilnius IIDeclaration, Mr Berstad explained, was a vision for the develop-ment of the Baltic Sea region until 2030. All of them – includingRussia which had subscribed to this Declaration – had committedto upholding the rule of law, democracy and respect for humanrights and human freedoms. In his view, everyone who had workedon this Declaration – both on the political level and on the level ofofficials – had realised that Russia had not fulfilled those aims or thevision at the time of the Declaration’s adoption in the year before.They had not done so for a long time, but the hope had been thatthis represented a vision for the future and maybe Russia would rec-ognise and develop its policies in these important fields. However,beyond that, the Kristiansand Declaration also included a strongemphasis on the safe and secure priority of the Council. This wasvery meaningful for ordinary citizens, as was the fight against traf-ficking, organised crime, although not directly an area of responsi-bility of the CBSS. Nevertheless, that area was very closely associ-ated with the Council. Children at risk, civil protection networkwere other fields of great importance. The Declaration furtherstrongly referenced climate change and decarbonisation as well asclimate neutrality and such issues. The ministers had also men-tioned moving away from fossil fuels.36 First SessionMr Berstad noted that he could go through all the details butbelieved that the Declaration represented a very strong message ofunity. This had also been expressed or recognised by the ministers inKristiansand, standing together while recognising that if they didnot stand together, then all of them would face real problems. Fur-thermore, one had to be aware that this situation had been createdby Russia for reasons that were very difficult to understand and cer-tainly impossible to accept. Yet the situation might last for a verylong time and be very costly, also in economic terms for countrieslike those in the Baltic Sea region. Concerning sea-dumped ammu-nitions, Mr Berstad said that it had not been directly addressed bythe Norwegian presidency. He pointed out that there were 100,000– 200,000 tonnes of dumped ammunitions in the waters adjacentto their nations. The problems and issues were known to the Coun-cil, and Norway was actively participating in EU-sponsored net-works. The task of the Norwegian presidency had been to look atboth sides of the straits, as there were similar concerns in the NorthSea as well as in the scope of the Baltic Sea states – the geographiccatchment area, so to say. The seriousness of this issue was some-thing that they were looking into, together with HELCOM andother structures.Mr Schraps thanked Mr Berstad for his insights, adding that it wasgood to hear that important steps were being taken to bring wordsinto action. This was not just something the BSPC was requestingfrom their governments but had also been asked for on Saturdayduring the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum. Nice words werenot enough, actions should be taken. Mr Schraps was glad that thefirst steps had already been taken.Since there were no more requests to take the floor at the moment,the vice-president moved ahead to the addresses by representativesof other parliamentary assemblies and BSPC observer organisa-tions. This was a good tradition at the BSPC Conferences. In thatvein, it was very much appreciated that the president of the Parlia-mentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, Mr Gennaro Migliore,was attending this year. In the previous year, Mr Pedro Roque, thevice-president and president emeritus of the PAM had addressedthe Conference. Mr Schraps pointed out that the BSPC and thePAM had signed a memorandum of understanding that would fur-ther intensify their mutual cooperation.First Session 37Address by Mr Gennaro Migliore, Vice-President andPresident Emeritus of the Parliamentary Assembly ofthe Mediterranean (PAM)Mr Migliore said it was a pleasure for him to contribute to the 31stBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference as president of the Parliamen-tary Assembly of the Mediterranean. He thanked President Niemiand Secretary General Bahr for inviting the PAM to this importantevent. The PAM and the BSPC shared a long-standing friendship.As mentioned before, they had approved a memorandum of under-standing in Rome in the previous November. Before starting hisintervention, he thanked the authorities who had delivered theopening of this event for their excellent contributions and couragein leading their countries through the ramifications of the Russianaggression in Ukraine: Dr Norlén, speaker of the Swedish parlia-ment; President Niemi; Ms Linde, foreign minister of Sweden. Theaggression had made everybody reconsider what was the most secureenvironment for their countries and their people after the UNCharter and its principles had been so bluntly crushed by a memberof the Security Council. Further, he thanked Ms Annika Huitfeldt,minister of foreign affairs of Norway, and Ms Annalena Baerbock,federal minister of foreign affairs of Germany, for their meaningfulinterventions and strong support for the efforts of the internationalcommunity in Ukraine.Mr Gennaro Migliore, Vice-President and President Emeritus of theParliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM)The title of this year’s meeting involved all of them: the answer to Rus-sia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. The Russian military aggression hadbeen a turning point in the history of Europe and the entire world. It38 First Sessionwas very likely that the world would never return to what people hadknown before, Mr Migliore cautioned. On 24 February 2022, on thevery same day that Russia had invaded Ukraine, the PAM had pub-lished a strong statement condemning the Russian unilateral decisionand offering its support to the efforts of international world leaders inobtaining an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of the Russian armyto avoid suffering of millions of innocent victims. Over the past week,they had seen with their own eyes the repercussions of this brutal inva-sion. First of all, the international law was being broken, and VladimirPutin had tried to change the world order by force. Around 15,000suspected war crimes had been reported in Ukraine since the war hadbegun, with 200 – 300 reported daily. These included atrocities, massexecutions and violence against women, children and the elderly. Inaddition, war crimes in Ukraine included the forcible deportation ofpeople to different parts of Russia, to what might be called the realintent of Russia, namely, to cancel Ukraine as a political and nationalidentity and Russify its inhabitants. Killing many, deporting othersand the so-called Russian re-education of the survivors – this was acultural genocide. Burning Ukrainian books remind the world ofwhat had happened in Germany before World War II. The Interna-tional Criminal Court had described Ukraine as a crime scene.In the preceding April, Mr Migliore had led the PAM high-leveltour to Romania, one of the PAM’s most active member countries.Like many members of the BSPC, Romania was also playing a keyrole in providing assistance to the refugees coming from Ukraineand in channelling aid into Ukraine. As the PAM, they had workedwith local authorities and many NGOs from Israel to the USA inorder to establish in Tulcea in south-eastern Romania a very effectivelogistics hub to forward humanitarian aid to the Odessa region, inparticular supplies of food and medicine. The Russian invasion ofUkraine had also had a major impact on food security in the PAM’sMediterranean region. Before the war, grain and corn exports fromUkraine had gone to minor countries. According to the UN, thefood prices of April had been 34 % higher than they had been oneyear before. Mr Migliore quoted the Executive Director of theWorld Food Programme who had been speaking about the situationin many other regions, saying, “We have got now 45 million peoplein 38 countries that are knocking on famine’s door. We know verywell that the current food crisis will lead to new social instabilitywithin the countries of the Mediterranean region and Africa, leadingnew threats also to our countries.” That was not to mention the sto-len farming equipment and thousands of tonnes of grain taken fromthe Ukrainian farmers in areas occupied by Russian soldiers and nowbeing smuggled into Syria so as to hide their origin.First Session 39Mr Migliore strongly believed that their interparliamentary workon this day would contribute to secure the necessary policy com-mitments to address these challenges, reinforce their partnershipand pave the way towards future action. All of them were standingwith the Ukrainian people for their freedom and future but also forthe future of the rest of the world. He quoted, Slava ukraini, in fin-ishing his address.Chairperson Schraps thanked Mr Migliore very much for hisstrong statement, reminding the audience of the importance tocontinue to deepen the collaboration between their parliamentaryconferences.The next speaker was Ms Cecilia Widegren, Vice-President of theInterparliamentary Union (IPU). The BSPC appreciated very muchthat the IPU was addressing the Conference, especially since thiswas a very important topic discussed in the BSPC Working Groupon Climate Change and Biodiversity, and climate change had alsotaken centre stage at the IPU’s 44th assembly. Moreover, the IPUhad given their answer to the Russian invasion in Ukraine.Address by Ms Cecilia Widegren, Vice-President ofthe Interparliamentary Union (IPU)Ms Widegren was happy to address the Conference in this house asit was her parliament since she had been an MP for 20 years, repre-senting the voters of West Sweden. Today, she also had the honourto also represent the Interparliamentary Union as the organisation’svice-president. Moreover, she was also the representative of theattendees because all of their national parliaments were very engagedin the IPU. So, she was also representing all the parliamentary gath-erings in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Asvice-president, she stood for 44 countries out of the 178 parlia-ments engaged in the IPU. The Baltic Sea Conference and the Inter-parliamentary Union shared the work and the same aim and mis-sions: stability, peace and security, democracy, freedom, sustainabil-ity and prosperity for their citizens. Ms Widegren welcomed theattendees to this event, to the Swedish Riksdag but also to Swedenand Stockholm, in one of the countries around the Baltic Sea.The Interparliamentary Union had begun only with the aim of sta-bility, peace and security 133 years earlier. It had been members ofparliament from Germany, France and Denmark – to mention afew of the parliamentarians who had started cooperation to getpeace and security. That had actually been the starting point of thenations uniting and then becoming what was today known as the40 First SessionMs Cecilia Widegren, Vice-President of the Interparliamentary Union (IPU)United Nations. In the words of the Secretary General, Mr Guterres,this was the parliamentary dimension of the UN. He could say thatbecause Mr Guterres was a former member of parliament, MsWidegren noted. Peace and security were the essence of the BSPC’scooperation and conference as well as the IPU’s cooperation. Theyheld the world record in peace and security. That was something forthem as members of parliament to live up to, for all of them asmembers of the IPU. They were the only recipient of a total of eightNobel Peace Prizes during the years. As parliamentarians, they wereworking on the ninth currently. To support their members andfriends in the Ukrainian parliament which is also a distinguishedmember of the IPU. The advance work was very important for all ofthem, and they did play a role.Ms Widegren wished to expand on the important role of parlia-mentarians. The IPU had a very clear ambition, not only to workwith democracy, freedom, human rights and general equality, sus-tainability but also of course peace and security. This was one oftheir strategic goals. By saying so, they had been trying to start theprocess towards the United Nations high-level meeting in the year2025 which would reinforce and renew their peace processes. Mem-bers of parliament all around the world had already begun this pro-cess in their resolution work within the IPU. Together with experts,such as Mr Eliasson, the former president and chair of CIPRI, aworld-recognised peace institute, the IPU was working to find newways to look into peace processes. Of course, the awful aggressionRussia was waging against Ukraine had put this further high on thetask list. Yet Ms Widegren reminded her audience that there wereFirst Session 41more than 70 conflicts right at this point around the globe. It waseven more than there had been after World War II. So, as membersof parliament, they did have a task to fulfil, she underlined. Thespeaker conceded that governments played a role and so did civilsociety, but that applied to members of parliament as well. There-fore, they would work with a tool kit for members of parliament toconduct and try to have this as one of the bases of their work.She called on her audience to look at the power of invitation thateach of the attendees as an MP had. They could invite both sides ofthe conflict. The IPU had done so. South and North Korea aroundthe same table, Israel and Palestine around a table, Ukraine andRussia – hopefully soon around a table. Ms Widegren insisted thatthe IPU were helping their colleagues in Ukraine to conduct thedialogue her side believed most important to actually come forwardwith some peace talks, with dialogue. They were the ones to do that.So could the attendees as parliamentarians, and the IPU could helpthem for the future. She further challenged the audience to take theopportunity at this Conference to discuss how they could help theircolleagues around the world to use these specific tools that they asMPs had: dialogue and invitational power to invite everybody thatwas important around a table.Ms Widegren wished the audience best of luck in their Conferenceand that they would have some great days in the Swedish Riksdag.Vice-President Schraps thanked Ms Widegren, especially for thisstrong statement because it underlined the importance of coopera-tion between parliaments. That was very important. The BSPC verymuch appreciated the cooperation with the IPU and were closelyfollowing the latter’s work.Moving on, he introduced the next speaker, Ms Josefin Carlring,the secretary general of the Baltic Sea NGO Network. In bilateralcontacts, the BSPC had had an intensive exchange with Mr AndersBergström who had conveyed ideas for further deepened coopera-tion to the BSPC Standing Committee in November 2021.Address by Ms Josefin Carlring, Secretary General ofthe Baltic Sea NGO NetworkMs Carlring opened by stating that in the present uncertain times,after a pandemic and during an illegal war in Ukraine, it was clearthat a closer and deeper cooperation between sectors of society wasa necessity to secure future peace, welfare and democracy here in theBaltic Sea region. Therefore, she was very pleased to be at this Con-42 First SessionMs Josefin Carlring, Secretary General of the Baltic Sea NGO Networkference to speak with the attendees as a representative of the civilsociety organisations here in this region.The war in Ukraine had put the civil society to its ultimate test andonce again proven how NGOs were playing a pivotal role in chal-lenging times. Tirelessly, the civil society had worked fast and effec-tively to fulfil the needs of women and children fleeing from theirlives where nation states often had been absent. Not only did civilsociety play a role in the acute situations on the ground, they werealso playing an equally important role with their long-term efforts tobuild a strong civil defence both within and across national borders.People-to-people cooperation was the key to building trust and asense of belonging among people. It was built when people met andcooperated, just like everyone was doing at this Conference.The theme of this Conference was the future of the Baltic Searegion. Ms Widegren argued that this future was already a reality intheir lives today. This future had already shown that they could notrely on old merits and wins when it came to people-to-people coop-eration. The pandemic had shown that people were vulnerable andthat trust and the sense of togetherness, even between neighbours,could not be taken for granted. There was no doubt that this futurewould continue to challenge this part of the world. It would chal-lenge their ability to handle a planet in transformation. To meet thisfuture, a strong and vital people-to-people cooperation was an abso-lute necessity.She thanked Mr Eliasson for reminding all of them that “We, thepeoples” were all responsible for shaping the future they wanted tolive in. This would not be done by them stating beautiful visions forFirst Session 43the future. That required urgent actions, among and between peo-ple, civil society, business, academia and politics. Shaping theircommon future lay in the everyday actions that were carried outtogether. A strong and vital civil society was the foundation forstrong democracies, the protection of human rights and sustainabledevelopment. Just as everything else, this could not be taken forgranted. It had to be involved, invited and prioritised in deci-sion-making. It had to be stimulated and supported with long-termand effective funding as well as with political will and leadership.In conclusion, Ms Widegren said that to meet their challenges,they had to innovate and cooperate together. They had to all con-tribute and share solutions and competencies across borders. Thecivil society was ready to drive and facilitate this developmenttowards a more integrated Baltic Sea region. To do this, they neededinvestments in the infrastructure for this integrated approach – aninfrastructure that gathered stakeholders from across sectors, acrossborders and on all levels of society to jointly develop solutions totheir common challenges. The civil society organisations wanted toinvite the parliamentarians to sign these platforms for cooperationand were looking forward to furthering their cooperation with theBSPC in the future.Chairman Schraps agreed that the BSPC was looking forward tothat as well. He thanked Ms Widegren for her contribution. As wasalways done when exchanging views with the NGO Network, theBSPC would also consider the recommendations from the latter forthe BSPC’s future region.He next mentioned the region Skåne whose regional assembly hadbeen official BSPC observers for the past ten years. They had alwaysgiven the BSPC valuable input for their work, particularly concern-ing migration and integration as part of the BSPC’s last workinggroup. Therefore, Mr Schraps was very glad that Annika AnnerbyJansson, the president of Skåne’s Regional Assembly, would addressthe Conference on this day.Speech by Ms Annika Annerby Jansson, President ofthe Regional Assembly, Region SkåneMs Jansson thanked the BSPC for inviting her as a representativeof one of the observer organisations to share their view on thisimportant topic. The Russian aggression against Ukraine was muchmore than an attack on a sovereign country, it was – as had beensaid and had to be said again and again – an attack on shared valuessuch as democracy, peace and cooperation. It showed the world that44 First SessionMs Annika Annerby Jansson, President of the Regional Assembly,Region Skånethese values were fragile and had to be protected; moreover, it alsoshowed them the strength and willpower of coming together incooperation. Many of the efforts had rightfully been focused on cri-sis management so far, coming together to impose sanctions andimportantly caring for those fleeing violence in Ukraine. Today, onecould see incredible actions by NGOs, cities, regions and theirnational and European associations in Europe and beyond, provid-ing shelter for refugees and emergency support for their Ukrainianneighbours. She pointed out that the Ukrainian municipalities wereplaying a crucial role in the country’s resilience and in securing thebasic needs of its citizens. This proved the importance of multi-lev-el-governance and the crucial role of local and regional authoritiesand civil society.While these actions and emergency aid would continue, it was nec-essary to also think about the next step. They had to begin to thinkabout how to go forward in supporting the recovery and recon-struction of Ukraine. If this crisis was to teach anything, it mightjust be the importance of cooperation – cooperation between actorsbut also the cooperation across national borders, with each other’sneighbours (and within the Baltic Sea region). The Regional Assem-bly had therefore been very glad to hear from their member organ-ization CPMR of the upcoming launch of the initiative EuropeanAlliance of Cities and Regions for the reconstruction of Ukraine.The background was – as announced on 18 May – that the Euro-pean Commission (DG NEAR) was setting up the Ukraine recon-struction platform (URP). This was meant to be an internationalcoordination platform, co-led by the European Commission andthe Ukrainian government. Reconstruction in Ukraine would needto build on Ukraine’s ownership and close cooperation and coordi-First Session 45nation with the EU and supporting countries. Mobilising andinvolving resources at the local and regional level would be key, MsJansson underlined. The initiative of a European Alliance of Citiesand Regions for the reconstruction of Ukraine was to be given a rolewithin the reconstruction platform, acting to facilitate peer-to-peercooperation and twinning partnerships between cities and regionswithin the EU with counterparts in Ukraine.The Alliance had the potential of providing a platform for how togo forward. This would help to channel EU local and regionalauthorities’ efforts and Ukrainian needs in a coordinated way at theEuropean level. This would enable an easy engagement mechanismallowing EU cities/regions/associations to collaborate with theirUkrainian counterparts in the reconstruction efforts. Importantly,it would at the same time serve as a formal platform backed by EUinstitutions, providing local and regional authorities with a moresecure framework to minimise the risks that they could exposethemselves to by undertaking individual initiatives with Ukraine inan ongoing context of conflict. Ms Jansson explained that the Alli-ance was currently being set up under the coordination of the CoRin liaison with the EC and the main European associations of localand regional authorities; the Council of Europe had also come onboard. The official launch was planned at the next CoR plenary atthe end of June.Therefore – in conclusion – she asked the attendees to rememberthat multi-level governance was important even – or rather evenmore – in times of crisis. That had been evident in the migrationcrisis 2015 when regions and municipalities had carried out theconsequences and responsibilities of this unprecedented flow of ref-ugees both in admittance and final destinations regions. It was evi-dent today in Ukraine. Ms Jansson expressed her hope and firmbelief that it would be just as important in the future of Ukraine.Vice-President Schraps thanked Ms Annerby Jansson for herspeech. As in their discussions at dinner the night before, it was verynice to hear her words and statement on this day.As for the last speaker in this session, he welcomed Ms Lilian Busse,the chair of HELCOM, for her statement. That had been plannedfor this afternoon’s panel discussion about climate change and bio-diversity. Since it was not clear Ms Busse would be able to attendthat panel and the BSPC was very interested to hear about her con-tribution to the Conference, she was given the floor at this oppor-tunity.46 First SessionSpeech by Ms Lilian Busse, Chairperson of HELCOMMs Busse was thankful for being invited and able to speak at thispoint. Everyone now had to practice travelling again as airportswere full and flights were being cancelled; that was the reason whyshe was speaking now rather than in the afternoon. This would bemore of a technical speech on biodiversity and climate change.She explained that she was the HELCOM chair, leading the Ger-man presidency of the organisation. As a matter of fact, Ms Bussewas the outgoing chair and would be turning over the duties to Lat-via in June. It had been quite a challenging German chairmanshipover the last two years, starting with corona when all the negotia-tions had been done online. There had not been a single in-personmeeting over the last two years. Obviously, it was ending with a dif-ficult geopolitical situation in the war in Ukraine, which trulyimpacted HELCOM as well. She would speak in more detail aboutthat later. However, HELCOM had been able to adopt the new Bal-tic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) in the previous October. That had beenthe only meeting with people present. The new Baltic Sea ActionPlan featured 199 actions and measures which should be imple-mented until 2030. Ms Busse drew the audience’s attention to sev-eral other documents that were also adopted at the same time. Therewas a Regional Action Plan on Marine Litter, a Regional ActionPlan on Underwater Noise and a HELCOM Science Agenda amongother documents adopted at that October meeting.Coming back to the outline of the Baltic Sea Action Plan, sheexplained that it featured four segments: biodiversity, eutrophica-tion, hazardous substances and litter as well as sea-based activities.In addition, there were the horizontal actions – or cross-cuttingissues – of which there were seven: monitoring, marine-spatial plan-ning, economic and social aspects, knowledge exchange and raisingawareness, hotspots, financing and then obviously climate change.In the next few minutes, she would outline how HELCOM wasworking with biodiversity and climate change. Clearly, the BalticSea Action Plan was a strategic programme and had a set of toolsthat needed to be implemented in order to reach the good environ-mental status of the Baltic Sea.As climate change was such an overarching issue and the resilience ofthe Baltic Sea was at stake, all these 199 Baltic Sea Action Planactions and measures were part of the solution. In that respect, shecited three paragraphs of the BSAP. Measures within all segmentswere designed to strengthen the overall resilience of the Baltic Sea,consequently improving its ability to respond to the effects of cli-First Session 47Ms Lilian Busse, Chairperson of HELCOMmate change. With regard to climate change, the ultimate aim ofHELCOM was to increase the resilience of the ecosystem of the Bal-tic Sea to its impact. All measures leading to a stronger Baltic marineecosystem resilience should therefore also be regarded as climate-ad-aptation measures. One paragraph on biodiversity stated that biodi-versity in the Baltic Sea was deteriorating, as the result of pressuresfrom various human activities, the effects of which were furtherexacerbated by climate change. Most species of fish, birds and marinemammals as well as benthic and pelagic habitats in the Baltic Seawere currently not in a healthy state. Ms Busse assumed that her lis-teners already knew these details, but she wanted to rattle off all theeffects through which climate change was affecting biodiversity: sealevel, waves, air temperature, sea temperature, solar radiation, seaice, salinity and seawater inflow, stratification and ocean water circu-lation, river run-off, oxygen, carbonate chemistry and river nutrientloads. These were a considerable number of impacts affecting biodi-versity. With a look at the Baltic Sea Action Plan and its 199 meas-ures and actions, several of the latter were dealing with climatechange. Of these, there were five specifically addressing climatechange: One was about implementing the science agenda, i.e., toimprove the access for policymakers to the scientific information onclimate change. Another one dealt with closing the knowledge gapon blue carbon. Under the German chairmanship, there had been atwo-day workshop on what the current gaps were. In the measure onimplementing blue carbon, they developed a strategic approach onocean acidification but also developing work under HELCOM tolimit the greenhouse gas emissions. Under the sea-based activities,there were several actions connected to climate change, such as theirwork on sustainable shipping as well as contributing to and follow-ing the discussions of the IMO on greenhouse gases.48 First SessionAfter talking about the Baltic Sea Action Plan, she moved on toanother document from HELCOM and Baltic Earth: the ClimateChange Fact Sheet. It was a summary for policymakers on the latestscientific knowledge on how climate change was currently affectingthe Baltic Sea. The fact sheet outlined for several different indicatorswhat was happening, what was expected, what the knowledge gapswere and what the political relevance of those indicators was. Tosum up, they now had a good and ambitious Baltic Sea Action Planthat had to be implemented, and that had to be done at an ambi-tious level. Moreover, the Climate Change Fact Sheet also had to beused to fill out all the knowledge gaps detailed in there.Ms Busse conceded that the present geopolitical situation madethis difficult. Since 24 February 2022, HELCOM had postponedall formal meetings. They were in a strategic pause until the end ofJune when the German chairmanship would hand over to the chair-manship of Latvia. Currently, they were in discussions how to moveforward in these difficult times with HELCOM.Vice-President Schraps thanked Ms Busse very much for theseimportant contributions. Many of the issues she had mentioned –especially concerning climate change and biodiversity – were alsopart of the BSPC resolution. They sought to include these issues intheir statements as well. That further showed the importance of aclose cooperation between the BSPC and HELCOM.With the first session coming to an end, Mr Schraps expressed hisgratitude to all speakers and participants of this very fruitful sessionand was sure that the cooperation in the Baltic Sea region andbeyond with the BSPC’s partners was vital and strong. That pro-vided hope to all of them that they would master the current chal-lenges all of them were facing. With that, he concluded the session.Second Session 49SECOND SESSIONDemocracy and freedom of ex-pression – how do we secure freemedia in the Baltic Sea Region?Ms Bryndis Haralsdóttir and Mr Wille ValveChairwoman Bryndís Haraldsdóttir introduced herself as a member of theIcelandic parliament, having been a member since 2016. She was quite newto the BSPC, and it was wonderful to be in the Riksdag with everybody.However, she was also present as head of the Icelandic delegation to the Nor-dic Council which was the connection from her island to the Baltic Sea.Her co-chair introduced himself as Mr Wille Valve, an MP of theÅland islands parliament, former minister, head of the delegationfrom Åland to the BSPC.Ms Haraldsdóttir noted that they were going to discuss very interestingmaterial at this situation: “Democracy and freedom of expression – howdo we secure free media in the Baltic Sea Region?” It was known nowthat media were also part of the war, so this was a very important issue todiscuss. It always was for democracy but especially at this point in time.They had great guests with them today, and she invited the first speakerto take the stand, Mr Michael Jarlner. He had been asked to cover theissue from a journalistic point of view, given his long experience as a jour-nalist and also his experience with Russia. He was a foreign reporter andformer Russian correspondent for the Danish daily Politiken.50 Second SessionSpeech by Mr Michael Jarlner, journalist, formerRussian correspondent for the Danish daily PolitikenMr Jarlner thanked the BSPC for inviting him. He had been askedto talk about democracy and freedom of expression and how tosecure free media in the Baltic Sea region. Jokingly, he noted that hehad about ten minutes to save the press in the entire Baltic Searegion. So, he did not know what he should spend the last eightminutes on. Seriously, he said that he would not talk so much aboutthe press but rather about understanding the task – understandingwhat the role of the press was. Thomas Jefferson had said, “Were itleft to me to decide whether we should have a government withoutnewspaper or newspapers without a government, I would certainlydecide for the latter.” Mr Jarlner asked the politicians to thinkabout this quote. Another founding father – the one of CBS EveningNews –, Mr Walter Cronkite, had said, “Freedom of the press isnot just important for the democracy – it is democracy.”Mr Michael JarlnerAccordingly, Mr Jarlner’s presentation was about understandingthe task, understanding the role of the press. Since they were nowin a Baltic Sea region meeting, they should also understand the taskof the region and that they were actually prisoners of their owngeography. In an aside, he noted that Prisoners of Geography byTim Marshall was his favourite book and urged his listeners to readthat book if they had not done so before. The very positive thingabout it – which he had been reminded about on their excursion toa museum the day before – was that it was fascinating to see theBaltic Sea area. Ninety million people, more than the entirety ofGermany, so many resources, so many resourceful human beings.There was a lot to like, but there was also something more negative.Second Session 51As much as they were intertwined with the waters and the people,they were also intertwined with autocracy and war – for the timebeing. The week before, Mr Jarlner had been in Lithuania. In thecountry, he had met with Ingrida Šimonytė, the prime minister.They had been talking about the vulnerabilities of the EU andNATO, about the Suwałki Gap. He had not thought much aboutthat corridor for a long time, this small border stretch betweenPoland and Lithuania, only 65 kilometres wide. Now, though, itwas surrounded on the one side by Kaliningrad, controlled by awarring and aggressive Russia, and on the other side by Belarus. So,this is what was around them. It showed two things: One was thevulnerability of the Baltic Sea region but also the coherence. It wasnot only about the Baltic Sea states but also about countries such asBelarus and Russia.When speaking about the press in this area, there were two majorchallenges: One challenge was that it was very difficult to go toBelarus. Mr Jarlner’s newspaper, Politiken, had not been allowedto go in for a long time. Another challenge was posed by the newmedia law in Russia which made many journalists refrain fromgoing to the country. The reporter pointed out that he had livedin that country a long time ago, but he had wanted to go backthere under certain circumstances. Yet he did not feel safe aboutdoing so. So, the question was what to do. First of all, there wasa very big task in the media when talking about the war inUkraine. That is that people had a very short attention span. Thisapplied not only to media but also to politicians. Sometimes, thespeaker was afraid that politicians were not actually preparingtheir populations for the war in Ukraine, that they would alsohave to pay for it. Moreover, politicians had to tell people thatthey were at war, although with different means. That did notmean it could be a war of convenience where they did not feelthe pain of having a war. Instead, the people and countries wouldindeed feel the pain of war. While they were not losing lives likein Ukraine, losing buildings like in Ukraine, but they wouldhave to pay something. Higher prices, maybe an economic crisis.There was a food crisis evolving. That was something that shouldbe solved, but all of them would feel that. The same went for themedia – they, too, had to be constantly aware that this was anongoing, a long-term war, that they should not repeat what theyhad done in 2014 and after. The media had forgotten that Russiahad already been waging a shadow war in the eastern part ofUkraine. They had gotten tired of it. When Russia invaded inFebruary, many readers had been surprised because they had for-gotten about the situation there. This was something to beavoided.52 Second SessionMr Jarlner had spoken with his co-panellists, saying that he wouldbe practical in his address. So far, he saw himself as being practicalby quoting Thomas Jefferson and Walter Cronkite, but what hadbeen done at his newspaper, Politiken in Denmark, was that theyhad tried to counteract this attention span by constantly sinking innew dimensions of their journalism and their opinion-making.They had invited President Zelenskyy to talk in Copenhagen amonth earlier. The Ukrainian president had spoken to more thanten thousand people just in Copenhagen and was also transmittedto the next-largest city. Just a few days before, his newspaper hadSviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Copenhagen. She had been talkingabout the relation between Russia, Belarus and the security ofUkraine as well as the security of NATO countries and the EU, notleast the Baltic countries. Another thing that his newspaper hadbeen doing was that they were trying to identify colleagues in whathe called “the other Russia” or “the other Belarus”. The reason forthat was that they should constantly be reminded that there werealso progressive, liberal powers in both Russia and Belarus. Theywere suppressed, it was difficult to reach them, many of them werenow exiled, but they were there. The attempt should be made tosupport them. Mr Jarlner raised the question of how to do so.Recently, he had found – as an example – a reportage by ElenaKostyuchenko, a very famous journalist with the Russian newspa-per Novaya Gazeta. Everyone knew that Novaya Gazeta had beenforced to shut down its operations. Ms Kostyuchenko had beenwriting an article from Mykolaiv in Ukraine. Mr Jarlner has askedwhether Politiken could print this article, and she had agreed underone condition: The text had to be translated into Russian in theuncensored version and then spread it. That was what Politiken haddone. At this point, the newspaper was talking to Medusa on howto support their journalism as good colleagues.But they could not just leave it to their suppressed colleagues inRussia and Belarus to take on this task: Instead, Western journalistshad to do something themselves. Mr Jarlner believed in a true Bal-tic spirit – or at least a Nordic spirit. Together with the Swedishnewspaper Dagens Nyheter, the Finnish Helsinki Sanomat and theNorwegian Aftenposten, Politiken from Denmark had established aRussian-language site. On it, they were taking their journalismfrom these newspapers and translated it into Russian so that peoplecould see an uncensored version of what was going on. He askedrhetorically whether it was a success. Mr Jarlner pointed out thatthey had received an award of honour from Moscow: They werecensored by Roskomnadzor on 16 March 2022. In other words, thescheme was working. The publication was irritating the Russianside, and that was continuing.Second Session 53That brought him to a recommendation he wished to present to thepoliticians assembled here. Mr Jarlner noted that he was not a sup-porter of state media but rather heavily against them. However, pol-iticians could consider how to support actions like what he haddescribed: translations of the free press articles and dissemination toRussia and Belarus and wherever they were needed. He could notstop without adding a small warning. There had been a film in the1960s called Don’t Look Back, about Bob Dylan. Looking at theaudience, he could tell that some had heard the name before. Butmaybe, sometimes, one should look back. Sometimes, it was neces-sary to do as Mr Eliasson had said, to remember in war what onehad said in peace. They should not forget – even though they wereat war in one way or another – that there were internal struggles aswell. Internal problems regarding democracy. Reporters WithoutBorders had been criticising Poland, for example, about increasedstate control of the media. The speaker’s own country and also Fin-land had been having cases against journalists who were coveringintelligence matters in their countries concerning widespread sur-veillance. This should be taken very seriously. Mr Jarlner moved onto his final quote, from Voltaire, his favourite. Voltaire had said, “Ifyou want to know who controls you, look at who you are notallowed to criticise.” Russia reminded the West of what they did notwant to be. The USA in the previous year had warned them howeasy it was to lose what was a guarantee against that.Co-chair Valve thanked Mr Jarlner for his thoughtful words. Heopened the floor for questions.Mr Kacper Płażyński from Poland believed there was another sub-ject that was very much correlated to that of free media. It was freescience. Very often, he wanted to point out the countries where thatseemed to happen, but that also happened in the Baltic States – notEstonia or Lithuania but some of them. When the scientists decidedto analyse some kind of topics that might not be so much politicallycorrect at the moment, then they sometimes faced criminal charges,even though they were really respected professors at national uni-versities with good reputations. Some topics, though, were tabooand should not be mentioned. Sometimes, even after a wave of crit-icism, that kind of scientist – who had decided to step out from thecrowd – was kicked out from the university or put in this chapterwith the people one did not talk to anymore, even though they werepreparing serious and real scientific theses. He thought that this wasa wider problem, not only about media. From his political perspec-tive, he saw in general in Europe that the media was more and moreunder the influence not only of politicians and governments but thepressure of money – the pressure from those who were able to pay54 Second Sessionfor some kind of sponsored articles, very often under the table, justto make some point of view more acceptable. He gave the exampleof nuclear energy which from a scientific point of view was as goodan energy source as renewable energy. It was a strategic componentof the energy mix and without it, countries could not have a com-petitive economy with zero emissions. But because of some kind ofinfluence – surely also from Russia – coming to Europe, it was veryoften defeated in the media and scientific matters. He asked hisaudience to look up this subject more widely. He urged that onecould not only speak of political pressure on the media; it shouldalso be seen as a point that international organisations, companieswere using them under the same rule, and it did not matter if it wasstate or private media.Mr Jarlner responded that he could spend the entire day respond-ing to the points the Polish MP had raised. Basically, he understoodMr Płażyński’s question to be whether there was enough scope fordiverging points of views. He hoped so. That was absolutely the ideafor his newspaper. He could not answer to Polish newspapers. Heknew quite a few of them and believed they were very good. How-ever, that was a problem – where to draw the line. In Denmark,there was a heavy debate at the moment: Some scientists had beenasked to meet flat earthers – people claiming that the earth was stillflat. To his mind, that was a limit. At this point, you were raising apoint of opinion and making it equal to that of science. That shouldnot be done, he underlined. As far as the question on nuclear energyand so on, Mr Jarlner was very much for it. All the arguments forit should be presented. They should never end up at a point whenthey would be talking about the war in Ukraine and the media end-ing up going to war as well. That was something they should abstainfrom and try to clear out. He thinks Mr Płażyński had pointed tosomething that was sometimes difficult. They should be able tosolve it. He hoped his answer was at least partly satisfying.Mr Ola Elvestuen from Norway wondered if Mr Jarlner couldreflect a little bit more. One thing the journalist had been talkingabout was the influence and how politicians could support freemedia in Russia, with reference to Medusa and others. Mr Elvest-uen asked if Mr Jarlner was aware of the reach these media couldhave, how accessible they were and how large a share of the Russianpopulation could actually get access to it. In addition, the parlia-mentarian was interested in how Mr Jarlner viewed media’s role inthe opposite direction: Russia and China and other authoritarianswere also trying to spread their story and their false news in Westernsociety. He wondered how people could have control and determinewhat was the real discussion to attend to.Second Session 55Mr Jarlner first spoke about how to secure access to their news. Heagreed that in Russia, one could not just browse politiken.dk.co oraftenposten.no, so their material had to be disseminated on plat-forms where one knew the readers were. His own newspaper wasdisseminating articles via Telegram, for example. The journalist wasmore and more aware of other opportunities that would be availa-ble – and that already had to have been used. Censorship kept mov-ing in, and so they had to find new ways all the time. But that wassomething they were absolutely aware of, Mr Jarlner assured his lis-teners. When it came to misinformation, he knew that another pan-ellist would be talking about that topic, so he only wanted to brieflyaddress it. The greatest problem to his mind at the moment was thatthey were not in Russia. They did not have the sense of what wasgoing on. What journalists did was trying to look at Russian televi-sion channels. He pointed out that it was necessary to separate mis-information from opinion pieces. One had to be aware of what wasbeing discussed in Russia all the time. Whether one liked it or not,that was reality, that was what they were doing. Then, somethingwould come in as misinformation, and that would have to bechecked. Moreover, it would have to be checked on your own sideas well. That was very important for Mr Jarlner to say that theymust not end up in another Iraq War situation where the West hadnot seen what had gone wrong on their side, what their forces haddone wrong and could be a problem in their own warfare. It wasdifficult to cover Russia while one was effectively not allowed to bethere, because of the hard censorship laws there. He would be happyto return to the topic of misinformation after hearing the otherpresentation.Mr Valve offered a warm thank you to Mr Jarlner for his presenta-tion.Ms Haraldsdóttir went on to introduce the next expert speaker.Ms Valentyna Shapovalova was a Danish/Ukraine PhD fellow inmedia studies. She had conducted several studies on Russian disin-formation and had closely followed Russian media during the war.Ms Haraldsdóttir was very much looking forward to the speech.Speech by Ms Valentyna Shapovalova, Ukraine PhDfellow in media studiesMs Shapovalova hoped her audience was ready for a lightning talk onRussian disinformation and propaganda, along with the current strate-gies and narratives. As she had around ten minutes to speak about thesematters, that was very little time, so she hoped that they could discuss thetopic after her presentation, not only in this room but also outside of it.56 Second SessionMs Valentyna Shapovalova, Ukraine PhD fellow in media studiesTo set the scene, she invited her listeners to a visit to the currentdomestic reality of Russia. Just a few days prior to 4 April 2022, thewestern world had been shaken by the horrific images from Bucha,a small town in the Kyiv region liberated from a month-long occu-pation by Russian forces. Corpses of local civilians were spread onthe streets of the city, with some having been tortured and othershaving had their hands tied behind their backs. Turning on the Rus-sian state-aligned television on 4 April 2022, one was met with avery different coverage of the events in Bucha. Instead of portrayingthe story as a tragedy, as an example of Russian war crimes, it hadbeen shown as a staged event created by the Ukrainian troops, as aprovocation to Russia. She presented a screenshot taken from a verypopular political debate show in Russia, 60 Minutes, on the sec-ond-largest nation-wide television channel. Here, the host had beenexplaining how the bodies spread out in the streets of Bucha were infact not real bodies but actors. This same interpretation, this oppo-sition to events, to reality, could be seen, heard and read on otherstate-aligned media in Russia. It was exemplary of the mass mediacoverage of the war in Ukraine, with fake fact-checking being oneof the main strategies in turning reality on its head to fit the Krem-lin narratives.Information and media control were one of the main pillars ofauthoritarian rule, not just in Russia but in other places of the worldas well. Disinformation and propaganda had been used by the Rus-sian state, both domestically and abroad, as tools of informationwarfare and control. That had been the case not just since 24 Feb-ruary 2022 but for years. That had been seen extensively during theinvasion of Georgia in 2008, the annexation of Crimea and theRussian invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. This was not an acci-Second Session 57dental spread of misleading narratives, nor was it a new occurrence.It was an ecosystem of malicious information practices, built andmaintained strategically by the Kremlin for years. She showed anillustration that was a partly simplified image of this ecosystem ofdisinformation and propaganda, containing social and traditionalmedia in Russia and abroad, controlled in a nuanced and multi-lay-ered way, top down from the Kremlin. She could talk for hoursabout how this control was exercised, for which she did not havetime. Yet the dotted line should illustrate that the control is notalways explicit. In fact, most often, it was implicit and – again –extremely nuanced.Ms Shapovalova circled back to this ecosystem – the spread and useof disinformation of propaganda – not being a new occurrence. Theway in which it had changed since 24 February 2022 was the mag-nitude – the magnitude of lies, of manipulated facts as well as theattempt to monopolise the information domestically in Russia. Inan Orwellian manner forbidding certain words, such as war, callingit a special military operation, and Ms Shapovalova confirmedexplicitly that the Russian state and state media were still callingwhat they were doing in Ukraine a “special military operation”.Before 24 February, the Russian media space had not been free. Infact, Russia had occupied 150th place on the Press Freedom Indexin 2021. But the strategic narratives of the state, the disinformationand propaganda had been challenged by a few independent outletsthat had actually reached quite wide. These independent outlets –she presented a few examples on a slide – had been strangled in Rus-sia since 24 February. A few of them were still operating from out-side Russia; they were accessible via VPN, and here she reflectedback to the previous question about how widespread they were. Thecorrect answer was that nobody knew. None of the outlets werefreely accessible in Russia. One needed to have a VPN or to knowwhich Telegram channels to use. She added that Telegram was amessaging service in Russia. Accordingly, access to independentnews was incredibly difficult in Russia these days, with this wall ofcensorship and manipulation and monopolisation of informationby the state.The speaker mentioned that she had been monitoring the Russianmedia quite closely since 24 February 2022 and also prior to that,due to her research interests. She had identified – together withother analysts – a few narratives in the Russian disinformation andpropaganda sphere. This raised the question why it was interestingor necessary to know the narratives. In order to fight or to contra-dict this malicious information practice, one had to know what itwas about. Ms Shapovalova noted that this would be a lightning58 Second Sessionround because she knew she was running out of time. The first nar-rative was that Russia was not conducting a war but a special mili-tary operation in Ukraine, solely targeting strategic military points.Russia was still claiming that they had not been and were not target-ing civilians in Ukraine. Instead, it was supposedly NATO that waswaging a war on Russia, doing so on Ukrainian territory withUkraine being a puppet state. The operation had been a necessityand unavoidable as NATO, spearheaded by the US, had beenthreatening Russia with expansion. For those in her audience whodid not know what a narrative was, the speaker explained that it wasan umbrella term, collecting many different stories that related tothese headlines. According to the narrative, Ukraine was a Nazistate and had been conducting genocide in Donbas. This narrativehad been very prevalent at the beginning whereas presently, theRussian media were veering a little bit away from that and movingmore and more towards claims that NATO was waging a war onRussia on Ukrainian territory. Russia was said to have the right toclaim territory which historically had belonged to them, in annex-ing regions such as Kherson. Sanctions on Russia were supposedlyhitting the West harder than Russia. She had seen a lot of storiesclaiming that Russia was quite self-sufficient and with all the sanc-tions, the West was playing a game on themselves. There was a lotof ridicule towards the Western leaders, the Western institutions,the Western liberal values and democracy. Last but not least, therewere also accusations of the Western media being Russophobic andspreading disinformation about Russia, just as in the very firstexample she had presented.To wrap up, she spoke about what the different goals of these disin-formation and propaganda practices were. There were many goals,but she had chosen three of the central ones. Firstly, it was to under-mine the existence of factually verifiable information, muddyingthe global information waters and creating a reality that waspost-factual. To quote Peter Pomerantsev from 2014, “Nothing istrue, and everything is possible.” It was also to undermine the legit-imacy of democratic institutions in the West, undermining whatMr Eliasson had called its unity. Lastly, it was to promote theKremlin’s political and geopolitical as well as military interests, fos-tering public support and justifying Putin’s actions. It was so crucialthat the leaders of the Baltic Sea region and the leaders in the Westin general understood that this was incredibly deeply rooted andwidespread. Ms Shapovalova stressed that Russian disinformationand propaganda had to be taken very seriously.Chairwoman Haraldsdóttir thanked her for her report. She opened thefloor two or three short questions. Later on, the debate would be opened.Second Session 59Ms Anne Shepley from the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpom-mern, a member of the Greens party, thanked the presenters for allthe information provided. She had never seen it that comprised.What she had been wondering in the last weeks was where all of thiswas leading, whether the Russian propaganda machine would justkeep on going or if the public would have any chance of breakingout of this. Somebody had said the previous night that it wasbecoming harder and harder to use e.g., VPN networks to get thegateway to free media, to European media. As such, she asked whereMs Shapovalova saw the development goal from here and whethershe foresaw a growing spiral of misinformation and propaganda andRussia and perhaps to some extent beyond that country.Ms Shapovalova approved of the question. Unfortunately, she wasquite pessimistic in this regard. The reason was that it was indeedbecoming more and more difficult to get information through toRussia. As Ms Shepley had mentioned, some VPN tools had alreadybeen blocked by the Russian state. Although it was a great idea –and she agreed that the Western media should continue translatingtheir stories and getting them through to Russians -, they were onlytargeting the opposition, in other words the people who werealready in the bubble of critique. It was incredibly difficult – if notto say impossible – to get through to the large core of people whowatch Russian television. It was incredible. The things that weresaid, the claims that were made on Russian television and were notpresented as opinion pieces. Oftentimes, they were presented asfact. Even Ms Shapovalova herself, as a researcher and moreover aperson from Ukraine, could not watch Russian television for morethan an hour at a time because it was messing with your head. Onestarted questioning what reality was. So, it was quite dangerous. Toget back to Ms Shepley’s question, the speaker believed this effectof propaganda and disinformation would keep on amplifying,although it was difficult to see how it could get even more expansivethan it already was. She thought it would get more and more diffi-cult to gain access to any independent information while Putin wasstill in power and while Russia was a non-democratic state.Mr Krzysztof Walczak from Hamburg, a member of the AfD party, askedMs Shapovalova what he considered a basic question. During her veryenlightening lecture, she had used the term disinformation and propa-ganda synonymously. He wondered if she drew a distinction between thetwo terms. From the perspective of a legislator, he asked where Ms Shapov-alova drew the line between what she had done – taking a narrative andcountering it by providing an alternative view – and where something hadto be banned. To his understanding, that was quite difficult. To counter anarrative, one had to be able to study it in its original form.60 Second SessionMs Shapovalova agreed that this was another very good question.As a matter of fact, in her very first PowerPoint presentation, shehad had a slide distinguishing between propaganda and disinforma-tion. She had removed it because her speech had already been toolong. As such, she was happy that she had been asked about this.Disinformation as broadly defined in the literature of disinforma-tion studies – mainly from information and media studies – wasmalicious and/or factually unverifiable – basically false – informa-tion which was false on purpose. That was the difference betweendisinformation and misinformation. The latter was false or mislead-ing information that was not on purpose false, misleading or mali-cious. For instance, if somebody’s grandmother saw something onFacebook that was disinformation and shared that, her act of shar-ing it would be defined as misinformation whereas the person whohad created the shared photo or text had provided disinformation.When talking about propaganda, things got muddier because prop-aganda did not necessarily have to be false or misleading. Propa-ganda could be information. Here, she explained she was using theterm information in the broadest sense so it could be text, speech,images or videos. But propaganda was information that was manip-ulated or framed to influence the public. Propaganda would oftenpresent the world in very black and white terms; it was often quitepolemic, playing on feelings. Sometimes, these could be positivefeelings, but a lot of the time, it would be negative feelings. Moreo-ver, propaganda was always strategic or ideologically created. Therewas always a strategic or ideological idea behind it. Apart from that,propaganda could be disinformative but did not have to be. MsShapovalova noted that in her own projects, she distinguishedbetween propaganda and disinformation, but in this case, she wasusing both of them simultaneously. Moving back to the questionabout when to ban things, she conceded that this issue was incredi-bly difficult. Looking at herself as an example, she underlined thatit was dangerous to just let media manipulated by authoritarianstates to fit their goals – in this case the Russian media – run freely.The reason was that people did not always know or understandwhat was disinformation or propaganda and what was not. Themedia literacy in the European part of the world was really good,but it was not perfect. Ms Shapovalova cautioned that these mediainfluenced one’s mind and views. One started questioning things.The very simple answer to Mr Walczak’s question would be that thespeaker did not know. From an academic point of view – from thatof media studies, a researcher looking into Russian disinformationand propaganda –, she was not that opposed to blocking websitessuch as RT or Sputnik which were not media news sites in the West-ern democratic understanding of the term but were in fact propa-ganda or disinformation instruments.Second Session 61Mr Gennaro Migliore thanked Ms Shapovalova for her excellentpresentation. He wished to share with them a consideration as well asask a question. In Italy – and presumably all over the world –, theproblem was not exactly the false or malicious news but rather thespread of these news. That was why they were in the middle of a cyberwar. For example, in Italy, they were worrying about the Telegramchannels of anti-vaxxers having turned into Putin propaganda. Thatwas likely also the case in other countries. His question was hownational legislators such as the parliamentarians could have the possi-bility to interact better with the owners of media companies, such asthe owner of Facebook and Instagram. He also started to mention Tel-egram before remembering that the owner of that site was on theopposing side. Mr Migliore specified the owners of the social mediaallowing Putin to put this propaganda into place. It had taken oneyear to have the terrorist ISIS propaganda blocked on social media. Itwas necessary to act right away not only on legislative measures butalso on the providers that owned these mechanisms.Ms Shapovalova agreed that this was an excellent point. The plat-forms also had a responsibility for countering these disinformationand propaganda waves. Some of them had taken more responsibil-ity than others. Some did so more on paper than in reality. How-ever, she very much agreed that legislators should try to influenceplatform owners more to combat this issue. Mr Migliore had saidthat the problem was not false news but the spread of it. She under-lined that the two could not be detached from each other. The prob-lem was both the existence of these false news but also their spread.By the way, Italy had quite a big problem with the spread of Russianpropaganda as Ms Shapovalova had unfortunately seen. She wassorry for that.Chairwoman Haraldsdóttir thanked Ms Shapovalova for herspeech and her good answers. She reminded the participants to signup for the debate at the end of the session, encouraging in particu-lar the representatives of the Youth Forum to speak.Co-chair Wille Valve noted that the Åland Islands were just havingthe centenary of their autonomy and peaceful existence. In June,the celebrations had been more of a festival; in October, they wouldhave more of an academic character as that would also mark a hun-dred years of the Åland Convention. In this spirit of academic cele-bration, he went on to introduce the third speaker: Ms Sia Spili-opoulou Åkermark had been Director of the Åland Islands PeaceInstitute since 2007. She was a lawyer, juris doctor and associateprofessor of international law at Uppsala University. She wouldapproach this session’s topic from an international law perspective.62 Second SessionSpeech by Ms Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Directorof the Åland Islands Peace InstituteMs Åkermark said it felt tough and obliging to be at this pointbecause this was the parliament of Sweden. What she would speakabout had a lot to do with the history of parliamentary work inSweden and thus also Finland. She would use quite a practical pointof view. As the Russian representatives were not present at the Con-ference, Ms Åkermark felt free to speak about what was happeningin their own Western democracies.The span of time she was looking at was only 260 years. That wouldnot take too long, though, she advised her audience and only men-tion two names: Peter Forsskål and Anders Chydenius. They werethe two priests, thinkers and philosophers who defended the free-dom of expression in the later 18th century, and both of them hadcome from Finland. That was no coincidence. Both of them hadseen disadvantaged groups that did not have the possibility to speakin the system of estates that had been in place at the time in Sweden.Because they had been inspired – several years before the Frenchrevolution – to adopt in 1766 the Freedom of Press Act in Sweden,one of the most progressive of the time. Anders Chydenius had saidthat the rights of defenceless people – which was how he hadreferred to the peasants – must therefore be nurtured with doubleconsiderations. He had also tried to strike the balance betweenequality and necessary differentiation, thus being a precursor ofmodern minority rights and systems. She asked the rhetorical ques-tion why she was bothering the Conference with these historicalrecollections of priests and thinkers of the 18th century. She did sobecause she believed that today, they were also seeing tendencies ofsecuritisation of minorities in a way which was not appropriate orconducive to democratic states. She would not speak of what washappening in the Russian Federation, but she could assure her audi-ence that she had had strong confrontations with the Russianauthorities before 2014, for all the securitisation and marginalisa-tion and stereotyping they had been implementing on their ownauthorities.On 31 May 2022, two weeks earlier, the public broadcaster Yle inFinland had published the results of a survey concerning the viewamong the Russian-speaking minority in the country about a possi-ble NATO accession. The reporting in the media indicates that themajority of them held a negative opinion. However, they did notconsider NATO membership a threat to Russian security. Interest-ingly, the same report had also revealed that most of this minoritygroup had felt highly uncomfortable responding to such polls andSecond Session 63interviews. The report had ended with the following sentence whichMs Åkermark translated as, “A remarkably varied range of nation-alities is included among respondents, including Russians, Estoni-ans, Belarusians and Ukrainians.” In a similar vein, it had beenreported that such surveys had been conducted among Russianspeakers in the Baltic States – a report from 20 May 2022 -, inwhich it had been learned that 60 % of the Latvian Russian-speak-ing minority had abstained from voting in such polls.Ms Åkermark noted that one did not have to be a Russian speakerto be the object of othering and being described as a problem and athreat these days. On 30 November 2021, three months before thewar, the Ålanders had been described as a group of unruly, histo-ry-less people, a common problem for Finland and Sweden, whoshould be put under pressure by Sweden. These were pronounce-ments by a person employed in a highly, well-known and well-ob-served think tank in Finland. In another article, the Ålanders hadbeen described by a very excellent journalists as free riders, thusconfirming the common idea of minorities as privileged.The speaker turned to theory because it was said there was nothingmore practical than a very good theory. The Danes had developedsuch a theory, the so-called Copenhagen School of Securitisation.Securitisation was a response to a situation presented as an existen-tial threat by taking measures going beyond what was considerednormal. The response was then transferred from the sphere of nor-mal politics to the security realm. According to these experts ofsecuritisation, this concept often encompassed situations in whichemergency measures were not actually adopted, but a presumptionwas created that such measures could be adopted at any minute.This was why Ms Åkermark was worried by these few exampleswhich she saw as the top of the iceberg; there were many other suchexamples. They showed that minorities also in their part of theworld were presented as stupid, illoyal, problematic and dangerous.She believed that António Guterres had been right when he hadspoken during the pandemic about a tsunami of hate. The speakerwent on to refer to the Tallinn Guidelines for National Minoritiesadopted by the High Commissioner on National Minorities. Here,she highlighted the preceding discussion about propaganda and dis-information. The Guidelines noted inflammatory discourse, notonly when such discourse had an aim but also was likely to result inhostility between particular groups. The Tallinn Guidelines did notonly require what was necessary when criminal sanctions were pos-sible but also asked politicians and the state to take a stand and dis-tance themselves from such inflammatory discourses. Thus, she wasbringing with her a lot of questions. There was no answer. They had64 Second Sessionnot been here before and needed to think what was possible andhow could they counter these tendencies when they were not goingso far as using hate speech sanctions and criminal legislation.As there were no questions to Ms Åkermark, Co-Chair Valvemoved on to the open debate part of the session after thanking thespeaker.Mr Himanshu Gulati from Norway noted that this was a very seri-ous concept that they were discussing. However, before that, hewished to start on a lighter note. Thanking the Swedish presidencyfor hosting the BSPC in the beautiful Swedish parliament and inthe spirit of good neighbourliness, he had promised himself not tobring up that Norway had beaten Sweden in football the day before.He further congratulated Mr Valve and the Åland delegation onone hundred years of autonomy. There had been a wonderful cele-bration on the islands the Thursday before which he had the pleas-ure of joining before. Regarding the subject of the session, hethanked the speakers for their very interesting speeches. This subjectwould become more and more crucial in the years to come for all oftheir democracies as well as for international cooperation in general.Free media was something that had been thought about for manyyears. Nevertheless, what it actually meant now was changing in hisview. Free press was about the bravery of the press to do their work,especially in regions of war. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, Afghanistanand even the Palestinian territories, journalists had died doing theirwork. Of course, this was extremely unfortunate and bad. Yet freemedia was also about an independent press. He posited whether itwas quality or quantity, in other words whether as many as possiblewould be able to report or whether it was about the people report-ing doing so independently. Mr Gulati referred to the Nobel PeacePrize committee’s decision of the preceding year, awarding the prizeto two brave journalists who had been reporting independently inan atmosphere where it was very hard to do so due to state pressure.Considering disinformation, the subject became quite different.The question was whether free media was about allowing as many aspossible to report, even if what they were reporting were fake news– put bluntly, lies. Therefore, this question was very important, andit meant change. One did not have to look at Russia but at theirown free democracies. Right at this time, in the United States, thehearings about the storming of the Capitol building had started.Even in such a free and open democracy – which many looked tofor inspiration –, there were many people who were living in com-pletely different, separate realities. Some people truly believed theelection were stolen, others said it was not. The latter seemed to bethe obvious fact, he noted. Despite having access to free media andSecond Session 65free information, the parallel realities were mind-blowing, in a neg-ative sense. He thought this was what the future held. They had tograsp what it meant for people living in the same society, with accessto the same free information to believe in completely different real-ities based on the news and media they wished to watch as well asthe echo chamber of voices they chose to listen to. Sharing a realitywas what kept people together as a society, whether within coun-tries or across borders, and that was falling apart to some degree.Moreover, as Dr Shapovalova had touched upon, there were thosecreating disinformation and those spreading it. Social media was agreat tool for empowering people, but it was also used as perhapsthe biggest tool to spread incorrect information. To make thedilemma even more paradox, a lot of the people spreading propa-ganda and misinformation did not even know what they were read-ing, believing and distributing was indeed not true. Mr Gulati con-ceded that he did not have any answers to this question. His pointwas that one should not take this topic of disinformation lightly. Ifpeople could not even agree on fundamental facts, they could notaddress the challenges of these times in a good way. Protecting thefree media, protecting the free press also had to include combatingdisinformation and lies. If people lived in different realities, theycould not work towards the same goals.Mr Simon Påvals from Åland focused on something that MrMichael Jarlner had said in his presentation. Mr Påvals wished tostress the importance of supporting the other Russia and the otherBelarus, the ordinary people that would like to have a different kindof future than what was presented to them. Moreover, he wished tounderscore the importance of supporting liberal democratic powersthat existed in Russia today. The mistakes made during the war onterrorism should not be repeated, in which ordinary people fromthe mass in the middle had turned to extremism and violencebecause of measures affecting ordinary people’s lives. The mostimportant part of this was to remember that the subject of the sanc-tions currently in place was Putin and the current Russian regime,not the Russian people. This might sound easy to understand, butthe propaganda machine today in most countries was saying some-thing else. There were easy ways to prove that. This mix-up betweenthe existing regime and the ordinary people – the mass in the mid-dle – was extremely dangerous, and history had shown that the con-sequences of such a mix-up were long and severe. Western ability indifferent ways to recognise those differences in the political and dip-lomatic conflict would be crucial for the outcome and the future forpeaceful relations in the northern hemisphere. Finally, Mr Påvalstackled the question of raising future generations that would be ableto do real thinking, especially future journalists who would be able66 Second Sessionto do their work as journalists. That was not easy, he conceded.There were many ways one could make it easy on oneself as a jour-nalist – to look at one people, one country as a whole. However,that was exactly why proper journalism was necessary.Ms Hanna Katrín Friðriksson from the Nordic Council thankedthe speakers for very interesting and important presentations.Everyone present agreed that free, independent media was one ofthe most important foundations that democracies relied on. Thechallenge they were facing in preserving the future with the free andindependent media was an enormous one. All of them also knewthe answers to why this was so important – what a free and inde-pendent press did for them. Simply put, there would not be muchof a democracy without a free and independent press. Democracy’sstrength rested in the hands of the people, so they had to be knowl-edgeable, informed to make the right decisions when they formedthe right opinions, when they supported something, when theyprotested something and when they voted. What was facing democ-racies now – and had done so for quite some time but was nowcoming in at full strength – was the fact that fake news, disinforma-tion and propaganda was threatening the ideal of the free, inde-pendent press and thus, democracy. Ms Friðriksson noted that shecertainly did not have the answers, only the strong belief that thishad to become something that was at the very top of the list of pri-orities at the moment. It was something that had to be fully focusedon in order to protect democratic values. Speaking about values, shewent on to note that she was representing the Nordic Council andused the opportunity to mention the Nordic Journalistic Sector, anon-profit organisation that had been founded in 1957, with thegoal to strengthen the development of the Nordic media and jour-nalism. It had been working ever since on especially reinforcing theNordic democratic values along with Nordic media and industry.She believed that it was important to expend that. Today, the per-spective of the journalistic centre had included training in the BalticStates. She hoped that cooperation and the centre would continueand would become in the future one of the tools that were so des-perately needed to fight the situation they were presently facing.Mr Wille Valve of Åland pointed out that one of the speakers hadtalked about uncharted territory, that they had not been in this sit-uation before. He countered that, in a way, they had been. This wasprofoundly a classic question, namely, what people were allowed tosay and what not and when. This concerned where the boundariesof free speech lay. What they were facing now was massive propa-ganda, in particular in the Baltic States. Its purpose was to destabi-lise the countries as such, as much as possible. A couple of days ear-Second Session 67lier, there had been news that the Lithuanian independence hadactually been illegal and should be revoked, according to Russianlawmakers. The Western countries had to support the Baltic Statesand listen to them when they asked for support by limiting theinformation warfare directed at them. They should be supportedbecause that was what friends did.Mr Aron Emilsson from Sweden explained that some time earlier,he had had the honour of chairing a seminar in the Swedish parlia-ment together with his colleague, Ms Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby,regarding how to defend a free and independent press and mediasector. It was an important issue on the agenda of the Conference.Mr Emilsson believed it was also about equal treatment of the pol-iticians’ clients – the people, the individuals. He stressed that therewas a challenge in combining support of the digital revolution withthe rule of a new media era as the new opinion square of thesetimes. At the same time, there had to be a defence of the freedom ofspeech. The concern was how to handle internet giants that hadtheir own economic muscles, agendas and ways to either promoteor block views or opinions through digital or human algorithms.Moreover, these were not always transparent. Then there was theissue of how to handle social media giants with more power andinfluence than small states, instead of free and educated journaliststhat would contribute to the public debate. The digitalisation was ademocratic revolution. However, it required regulation to controlits rule and defend the need of freedom of speech. Mr Emilssonnoted that he wished to put these questions forward for all of themto keep them in mind when combining these two elements in allthe legislations they were making, both in the European Parliamentand in their own parliaments in their countries as well as in all thecooperation between them. He thanked the speakers for their con-tributions and called on his colleagues to keep these crucial ques-tions in mind.Ms Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby of Sweden underlined that they lovedfree and independent media. They hated disinformation, propa-ganda and fake news. At least, that was how it was in democraticcountries. However, she wondered who was to define what waspropaganda and disinformation. In Russia, that was very clear.Everybody outside Russia realises that this was fake news, disinfor-mation, propaganda in order to get involved in the neighbouringcountries. The definition of fake news, disinformation of propa-ganda, though, would always be made depending on where onestood. The definition would therefore be more or less subjective.What happened in Russia was extreme, and no-one outside Russiacould say this was anything else but fake news and propaganda. She68 Second Sessionposited the question though what would happen if governmentsdecided that the free media was spreading disinformation when thenews coverage had an angle the government did not agree with.They knew that the situation for the free press globally was notdeveloping in a very positive direction. All of them agreed that theyhad to fight disinformation and propaganda, but she reiterated herquestion who had the right to define what was which and whetherone should worry that the future of the free press was threatened.This was more or less a question to their eminent panel which MsTenfjord-Toftby asked them to maybe develop a little further. Afterall, everybody in this hall agreed that they were on the right side ofhistory. But she asked how this was going to look and sound whenhistory was actually written.Mr Johannes Schraps of the German Bundestag pointed out thata lot of very wise words had already been said in this discussion.Talking about disinformation and fake news on the one hand andfreedom of speech and media on the other hand, he saw this trulyas a two-fold issue. It was about those spreading propaganda anddisinformation but also about those who were receptive and acces-sible for disinformation and fake news. He thought it was veryimportant what Mr Gulati had mentioned at the beginning, that itwas also about the ones who were accessible. Freedom of speech ina democratic system was constitutionally protected. He underlinedthat this was a good thing. Nevertheless, that also meant that disin-formation was protected by the constitution as well, although itcould present a very dangerous threat to free speech and to opendiscourse and maybe even to democracy itself. So, it was upon themas politicians to get this under control. In their democracies, therewas a growing number of their population that believed in fakenews and obviously false information, even if there is access to freemedia. That does not prevent them from seeing a lot of peoplebelieving in fake news when they hear them, despite this access toother information. Thus, Mr Schraps also saw a question abouteducation, raising awareness of fake news and disinformation andto be able to adequately analyse available information.Mr Michael Jarlner noted that he did not wish to give anotherpresentation but rather offer a comment because of something thatDr Shapovalova had said. There had been a question of who couldactually access the news Politiken was disseminating on their Rus-sian website, specifically whether a VPN client was needed and thelike. He very much agreed that it was not everyone who had a VPNclient and who wanted one because very often it would be peopleopposing the system who would be using such means. Nonetheless,Mr Jarlner explained that he was an economist. What economistsSecond Session 69always did was to assess the so-called zero alternative – doing noth-ing. He asked if that would be better, answering straight away thatthat would not be the case. It would not be better. By providing analternative, a point of reference was put in place. Moreover, some-thing else very important happened: They were showing that theyhad not forgotten the other Russia, the other Belarus. That was veryimportant. He went on to look at another very important discus-sion that had come up in this session concerning censorship anddisinformation. It was extremely difficult, he conceded. Some coun-tries had forbidden Russia Today. Their argument ran that it waspart of a state-operated manipulative propaganda machine whichwas detrimental to democracies. That was one side of it. The otherside was that forbidding something seemed to be the same thing aswas claimed of the others doing to Western countries. So, a balancehad to be struck. Mr Jarlner noted that he often preferred puttinga clear marker on an entity denoting it as a state media believed tobe manipulative. That was something one could do. It was some-thing in-between, but he found this a lighter process. As for whoshould decide what was disinformation and what was not, Mr Jarl-ner explained that for his newspaper Politiken and other journalis-tic media, there were responsibility laws in all kinds of forms – inDenmark, Norway, Germany and so on. But on social media plat-forms, very often there were no such rules, and one could say what-ever one wished to. When that was done, it was very important toconfront such views. Democratic people should not pretend thatthese views running counter to their own opinions did not exist.Sometimes, these should be confronted. Donald Trump was a verygood example of this. He had had a lot of fake news. Americanmedia had responded by actually testing his statements. They hadpresented what Mr Trump had been claiming and what the truthwas. This was a way of working around the matter. He concededthat he was not offering a clear-cut solution because there was nosuch thing.Co-Chair Wille Valve thanked Mr Jarlner for this food for thought.This second session was coming to an end, he noted and offeredmany thanks to the speakers in this exciting session. With that, heclosed the session.70 Third SessionTHIRD SESSIONMitigating Climate Change, Pre-serving Biodiversity and Adaptingto Climate ChangeMs Cecilie Tenfjord-ToftbySession Chair Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby welcomed the attendees to thethird session of the Conference. As chair of the Working Group on Cli-mate Change and Biodiversity, it was a great pleasure for her to addressthis session. Its theme was Mitigating Climate Change, Preserving Bio-diversity and Adapting to Climate Change. That was one of the fourpriorities in the Swedish presidency. According to an extensive reportfrom the World Meteorological Organisation, the number of disastersrelated to extreme weather had increased dramatically during the last50 years. There was no doubt that climate change was a driving forcebehind this situation. More and more parts of the world were affectedon a daily basis, and it was obvious that the efforts had to be speededup if one was serious about reaching the sustainable development goalsthat had been agreed to. This was also well documented in the IPCCclimate report that had been presented earlier this year.She was therefore very glad to welcome Mr Anders Grönvall, StateSecretary to Sweden’s Minister for Environment and Climate. Hewould present some conclusions from the recent Stockholm +50 Con-ference which had gathered around 150 countries with the precise aimto find solutions that could contribute to a sustainable future.Third Session 71Speech by Mr Anders Grönvall, State Secretary to theMinister for Environment and Climate, SwedenMr Grönvall thanked the BSPC for giving him the opportunity tospeak here. He would talk about the Stockholm +50 Conferenceand also the Swedish government’s priorities regarding the climate,biodiversity as well as the Baltic Sea region. The Stockholm +50Conference had demonstrated a strong determination from theglobal community to work together to secure a better future and ahealthy planet for all, through the power of multilateralism andinclusive joint action along with system-wide transformation. Thatwas indeed in line with the Conference in Stockholm in 1972.What had happened in Sweden since 1972 had been building acredibility around the world from the Stockholm meeting all those50 years ago until today. That was something they could and hadused. However, that had not come by itself as it had been hard workby many people in Sweden – the civil society, the government andother organisations. The idea to have a new conference had come,as far as he knew, from the Swedish parliament and the parliamen-tarians here in the Riksdag. Since then, more than a couple of yearsof hard work had gone by to make that happen. The embassiesaround the world, the planning committee – many people haddone astonishing achievements to make it happen. Especially theformer minister of the environment, Mr Per Bolund: He and hisstaff had done the groundwork for this event before the presentminister had taken over in December. The result was a big and pos-itive surprise: The interest had been huge; Mr Grönvall’s wildestdreams had been bringing together 100 countries, but 155 coun-tries had been represented, most of them by their minister of theenvironment but also with presidents, prime ministers and foreignministers attending. Over 4,000 people had visited the conference.Moreover, the outcome of the conference had been a surprise, heunderlined. The message had been clear from the member statesand stakeholders alike: Urgent action was needed to bring abouttransformative change for the well-being of current and future gen-erations, to solve the climate crisis, hold and reverse the biodiversityloss and stop pollution. The final recommendations from the meet-ing were much more than had been expected. The Swedish media,of course, was not interested in telling that story, he noted, yet all ofthat could be read online.Mr Grönvall highlighted bullet point number 3 where it said, pro-moting the phase-out of fossil fuels. That was really important, thatthe meeting had resulted in that conclusion. The purpose of Stock-holm +50 was to set the world on a credible path towards accelerat-ing the implementation of previous agreed national and interna-72 Third SessionMr Anders Grönvall, State Secretary to the Minister for Environmentand Climate, Swedentional targets. They had to strengthen the multilateral system,enhancing ambition and collaboration and solidarity so as to buildtrust. That might be the most important aspect about Stockholm+50, building trust among the countries. They had to implementthe phase-out of fossil fuels and build nature-positive and circulareconomies. This would be important in the coming years when theywould have new, important meetings to come. The attendees ofStockholm +50 would carry with them the responsibility to standup for the words spoken at that conference. The Swedish govern-ment was looking forward to following up on the Stockholm +50legacy, not least at the Ocean Conference in Lisbon a couple ofweeks later, the Climate COP in Egypt in November and the CBDCOP in the fall of the present year. The location had not yet beenset, but the event would take place. Moreover, there would be theFuture Summit in 2023.The recommendations from Stockholm +50 reflected a clear deter-mination expressed by the government, civil society, youth societyas well as public and private organisations and institutions. Themeeting had also demonstrated a desire to assume an intergenera-tional responsibility. Youths had been included in both the plan-ning process and the implementation of Stockholm +50. A green,inclusive, just and sustainable transition and a green recovery fromthe COVID-19 pandemic was the way forward, to ensure thateveryone would enjoy the benefits of a healthy planet – women,men, girls, boys alike. It had also been clear that it was necessary torethink and redefine how to measure economic success and growth.One of the key outcomes from the meeting had been to recogniseintergenerational responsibility as a cornerstone in policymaking,including engaging with the Stockholm +50 youth task force.Third Session 73He further spoke about the Swedish government’s priorities in theBaltic Sea region when it came to climate change and mitigationmeasures. The effects of climate change on the Baltic Sea regionwere already severe. Climate change was a threat to the forests, theoceans and the seas. The Baltic Sea region and the Baltic Sea wereespecially sensitive to the changing of the climate. At the same time,the region offered great opportunities for mitigation initiatives. Inthe last few years, the Baltic forests had suffered greatly from heat,dryness, fires and bark beetle infestation. Sustainable biomass wasan important pillar in the energy transition, and the forests shouldbe made more resilient to a changing climate in order to contributeto this effort, even in the future. The Baltic Sea was a fragile envi-ronment. Since it was a semi-enclosed area, stress put on the BalticSea remained for a long time. It was one of the fastest-warming seasin the world. Increased temperatures had severe negative effects.One was that the water was holding less oxygen. Moreover, the Bal-tic Sea had been becoming more acidic. The significant impact ithad on the ecosystem and also the human activities was negative,such as tourism, fishing and other aspects. At the same time, theBaltic Sea had great potential to contribute to the fight against cli-mate change. Wind turbines, coastal restoration had a significantpotential to contribute to reducing emissions. The Swedish govern-ment was making it possible to generate 20 – 30 terawatts of windenergy offshore, but a greater potential was available for furtherplanning. Shipping, agriculture, fisheries should also be made sus-tainable in order to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and otherenvironmental pressures on the Baltic Sea and its ecosystems. Towork in this area, European and international cooperation wasessential, Mr Grönvall stressed.Climate change was affecting species, ecosystems, biodiversity. Bio-diversity, of course, played a role in reducing the negative effects ofclimate change. The greatest impact of biodiversity in the Baltic Seawas eutrophication. The vast area of oxygen-depleted seabeds wasdestructive for the ecosystem, and excessive algal blooms had a neg-ative impact, not only on the ecosystem but on the well-being ofmillions of citizens around the Baltic Sea. Nutrient loads from land,where agriculture was a major source, therefore had to be reducedconsiderably. Various other pressures that were harmful to the Bal-tic Sea came from activities on land. These should also be addressedbefore reaching the sea. Some examples were pollution from litter,microplastics, pharmaceuticals and other hazardous substances.Fishing activities had a serious negative impact on the marine bio-diversity. The absence of large predatory fish in combination withexcess nutrient loads made eutrophication worse. The application ofthe ecosystem approach to fisheries in the Baltic Sea was therefore74 Third Sessionimportant and could be strengthened. Sweden was working on thedevelopment of an ecosystem-based management of the oceanresources. The recently updated Baltic Sea Action Plan, the updatedprogramme of measures for the EU Water Framework Directiveand the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive covered whatneeded to be done. The management of the action plans to protectand improve the biodiversity in the Baltic Sea was supported byresearch, data collection and monitoring and therefore confidentthat the expertise and knowledge needed to do all this was in plan.In the spirit of the Stockholm +50 Conference, it was now due timeto act according to the comprehensive plans and implement all thenecessary measures.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby thanked Mr Grönvall very much for his inter-esting and fruitful presentation. She opened the floor for questions.In particular, she had noticed that a member from the youth groupwished to ask a question. Since they were only observers who usu-ally did not have the right to speak, Ms Tenfjord-Toftby asked,with the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum just preceding thepresent Conference, if the attendees would agree to allowing themembers of the youth forum ask questions. Nobody was againstthat. As Mr Gennaro Migliore had put in a request to speak, thechair asked if that would be a question or a statement. Mr Miglioreopted for the latter, so that Ms Tenfjord-Toftby told him thatshould wait until after the panel discussion.Mr Kacper Płażyński mentioned that he was aware he had alreadytaken the floor twice, so he apologised. He wondered why he hadnot heard anything about the development of nuclear energy. Heknew that it was a provocative question, he added.Mr Kai Mykkänen from Finland was grateful for the interestingpresentation from the state secretary. Mr Mykkänen noted thatthey had received a short briefing from the chair of the HELCOMdelegation who was presently a German. Russia was going furtheraway from different organisation. With the efforts in tackling envi-ronmental challenges in the region in a more general way, he askedwhat Sweden’s plan for the protection of the Baltic Sea projects wasif cooperation with Russia would be impossible within HELCOMfor the next decade or so. Mr Mykkänen wondered how that couldbe done when cooperation in environmental aspects was necessaryalthough there was not very much ground for working together.Mr Simon Påvals of Åland had a short question about the bigtrawling ships that were currently fishing herring in the Baltic Seaand the Swedish government’s decision to move out the border forThird Session 75trawling ships. He would like to know if Sweden had any intentionsto also try to change the trilateral agreement with Finland and Den-mark about the trawling borders.Mr Grönvall addressed the topic of nuclear power first. In Sweden,there was a lot of electricity. That was why industries were nowplanning for a green development to produce green steel and a lotof battery factories. So, there was a big change in Sweden with a lotof jobs coming in during this transition. So that was a possibility,but more energy was yet needed, more electric power. Hydro powermade up around 30 – 35 % of energy generation. Nuclear powerwas also important and would remain important, he said. Never-theless, it was necessary to get more energy fast, and buildingnuclear power plants took a lot of time. Therefore, Sweden had tofocus on things that would go faster. That meant wind energy. But,he pointed out, it was not illegal to start building nuclear powerplants in Sweden. If anybody would want to do so, that was withintheir choice. At the moment, industry was looking at solutions thatwould earn them more money. Time would change things, though.As energy prices were going up, that might change the prospect ofnuclear energy as well. He reiterated that there was no legal prohi-bition stopping anyone in this respect.As for HELCOM, he conceded that there was a big problem. MrGrönvall was convinced that the European Union was a strongcooperation to lean on if there was a problem with the HELCOMcooperation. This would have to be discussed by the countriesaround the Baltic Sea how to move on. He agreed that Mr Mykkä-nen had raised a very important question, but Mr Grönvall unfor-tunately did not have a good answer yet. It was very much impor-tant, as was the ISIS Cooperation around the fisheries which neededto be continued.The trawling ships were not his department, Mr Grönvall respondedto Mr Påvals’ inquiry. He tried to answer nonetheless. Expandingthe borders was a way of trying to secure the herring in the area.Many things had to be taken into consideration. Moving out theborder for trawling was one of many options things that had to bedone.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby thanked Mr Grönvall again for his contribu-tion to their session. It was very valuable for them to hear from theSwedish government. She noted that he was free to stay and listento the rest of the session as she expected him to receive a lot of goodinformation and input from the members which he could takealong to his very important work.76 Third SessionAt this point, the chair moved on to the panel debate, a discussionon climate change and biodiversity, best practices and initiatives.She was very glad to welcome the panel, beginning with Ms IngerMelander. Ms Melander was an expert for Fisheries and Markets,representing WWF Sweden, an organisation that was a member ofthe Baltic Sea NGO Forum. Also with them was Mr Dennis Ham-ro-Drotz, senior programme manager at NEFCO. Furthermore,there were the representatives of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary YouthForum, Mr Andreas Schoop and Ms Simona Jakaitė. Ms Ten-fjord-Toftby welcomed all of them to the podium with her.The chair went on to remind the attendees that the youth forumhad taken place the preceding Saturday. She hoped that, duringthese discussions, they would be given examples of best practicesand concrete initiatives aiming to tackle the effects of climate changeand to preserve biodiversity. Ms Tenfjord-Toftby was also chair ofthe BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity,which had been in launched in digital form in August 2020. Whenthe working group had been established, it had been decided thatthey should focus on their efforts, on the environmental aspect ofclimate change and biodiversity as well as on innovation, technol-ogy and best practices. By acquiring knowledge from experts, learn-ing from each other and by studying best practice examples of suc-cessful projects, Ms Tenfjord-Toftby was convinced that the work-ing group could contribute significantly to this most important taskto mitigate and counteract the effects of climate change as well as topreserve biodiversity. The outcome of their work would consist of anumber of political recommendations, directed immediately to thegovernment. At this point, she was disappointed to notice that thegovernment representatives had already left. Picking up from before,she said that the outcome would be presented to all the govern-ments in the BSPC member states, and the working group wouldpresent its final report in 2023. Usually, that result should havealready been presented in the current year, but because of the pan-demic, they had not been able to travel to each other’s countries andstudy actual best practices. The group had held one single physicalmeeting on the Åland Islands in May. That had been a very goodone, and they would hold more of them. Before beginning thepanel discussion, she offered the panellists the opportunity to give ashort presentation of both their organisations as well as some exam-ples of initiatives with the purpose to improve the environment inthe sea and on land.Ms Inger Melander explained that she represented WWF Swedenas well as the entire organisation of WWF, a global conversationorganisation, founded in 1961. The Swedish chapter had beenThird Session 77launched in 1971. Across the globe, WWF had approximately6,000 employees; in Sweden, there were 170. There were more than5 million supporters. WWF Sweden was based in the Stockholmarea. She had been asked to highlight some of the best practices theyhad in the Baltic ecosystem area. Ms Melander stressed that whileshe was representing the Swedish office, they also had a Baltic eco-system programme that worked specifically with these questionsand this region. They had WWF offices and associated offices thatwere working with these questions, both in terms of land and theocean. One project concerned the harbour porpoises. WWF wasworking in the coastal areas, the archipelago areas; furthermore,they had won the Baltic Sea Farmer of the Year Award for projectstrying to limit the nutrient run-off. WWF was also collaboratingwith Seabirds, a gathering project but also for monitoring of the sta-tus of the Baltic Sea. That allowed them to monitor fish stocks,nutrient overloads as well as climate change. The bottom two werethe fisheries and a fish that was tricolored, representing the sea foodguide in the network. 28 offices had that, and in the Baltic Searegion, they also had the sea food guide. This worked as a consumerguide to help consumers make more sustainable sea food choicesbut was also important as a governance, advocacy and policy tool tohelp both the industry but also policymakers and elected officials tomake more sustainable decisions when it came to fishery manage-ment and ocean management. The overarching aspect for WWFwas to work with the most pressing issues at the intersection ofnature, people and climate. They were aiming to tackle the threatsthat they were facing now in the climate crisis but also to restoreand conserve wildlife, different habitats, the ecosystems and theecosystem services that these habitats provided. It was also necessaryto remember that they needed to reserve or reduce their global foot-print so that they could only consume and produce within the plan-etary boundaries.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby gave the floor to Mr Dennis Ham-ro-Drotz, representing NEFCO, noting that it was very importantto listen to him because discussions in the working group very oftencame to the topic of financing. Mr Hamro-Drotz could giveanswers on this very subject.Mr Hamro-Drotz confirmed that he represented NEFCO whichhe described as the Nordic green bank. In a nutshell, he called him-self a tree-hugging banker. He wished to start and finish with hismain point. They had many problems to solve related to climatechange, eutrophication and biodiversity. They also had many goodplans, many good conferences. What was very often lacking after-wards was the financing of the implementation of these plans and78 Third Sessionrecommendations. NEFCO had been founded by the five Nordiccountries in the early 1990s to address the environmental problemsin the Baltic Sea. Over the years, they had financed many wastewa-ter treatment plants around the Baltic Sea, a lot of them in the Bal-tic countries but also in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Their man-date had been expanded over the years. Today, they were financingprojects of various sorts globally; all of these projects had a link toNordic interests, to Nordic small and medium-sized enterprises,but everything that NEFCO financed had a positive effect one wayor another on the environment. The Baltic Sea was still one of theirfocus areas, and NEFCO was doing everything from normal bankloans over equity investments to grant investments. For the past tenyears, together with their sister organisation, the Nordic InvestmentBank, NEFCO had been fund managers for the Baltic Sea ActionPlan Fund. Here, this was a good example of what could be done inthe Baltic Sea watershed and what could be done to a greater extent.These days, the fund received financing from the governments ofSweden and Finland. The state secretary had mentioned many top-ics – everything from eutrophication to microplastics, agriculture,forestry, cleaner fuel for ships etc. All of these topics had been cov-ered in projects receiving financing from the Baltic Sea Action PlanFund over the years. Every single euro spent that had been providedas a grant through this fund had actually resulted in seven moreeuros coming in from other sources during the course of implemen-tation of these projects. Today, following the launch of the new Bal-tic Sea Action Plan by HELCOM, NEFCO was also working withthe governments, trying to further strengthen this Baltic Sea ActionPlan Fund so as to also be able to provide early stage financing inthe future for various types of projects addressing one or several ofthe environmental problems in the Baltic Sea. Mr Hamro-Drotzprovided a couple of examples, such as a number of energy effi-ciency projects, e.g., one related to housing in Ukraine. Comingcloser to the Baltic Sea, there were the wastewater treatment plants.More innovative projects were looking into how to use residuesfrom animal husbandry, not only biogas but how to reuse nutrientsextant in the waste. He pointed out that the waste was of great valueon land but detrimental when it ended up in the waters. One hugeproblem that still remained in the Baltic Sea was the issue of inter-nal loads: all the nutrients in the sea floor bottom at the momentthat were re-released into the water following oxygen depletion. Thequestion was how to address this problem to a greater extent. Someprojects financed by NEFCO were looking into this problem. Onevery concrete example was a project by a Finnish foundation; inmost supermarkets in Finland, one could find fish patties madefrom very low-value fish – in fact, the Finnish term for that trans-lated as “garbage fish” into English. Once fished, though, they hadThird Session 79a very positive effect on the nutrient balance of the Baltic Seabecause nutrients had been removed from the sea. A follow-up pro-ject was looking at the Swedish market. That was a small but veryconcrete example. Mr Hamro-Drotz noted that he was lookingforward to the panel and reiterated his first point, that there was aneed to finance the various plans that were being developed. Onlythat way would they end up with concrete projects addressing all ofthe issues that had to be solved.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby thanked him, moved on to – last but not least– the two representatives from the youth forum. She knew that theyhad been working very hard as the chairwoman had joined theforum on Saturday. However, she was also aware that the youngpeople had been working all of Sunday to be able to present the rec-ommendations that they had chosen to prioritise. The chairwomangave the two of them the floor.Mr Andreas Schoop introduced himself as coming from Potsdamin Brandenburg, Germany. Ms Simona Jakaitė said she was fromLithuania. Mr Schoop went on to explain that they had the honourof presenting the final recommendations they had collected in theirtwo days of work. These would also be distributed as paper copies.Ms Jakaitė reiterated that for the past two days, Saturday and Sun-day, sixty young people had had the opportunity to talk and discussand agree together on what they wanted to be their core recommen-dations, what they were asking the BSPC to include and to beimplemented in the foreseeable future. In two days, that had been avery hard task because climate change was a very broad topic. Put-ting that into four topics, with two recommendations per topic, wasquite challenging. She hoped that they had narrowed everythingdown to be quite clear. Mr Schoop added that fifteen youth organ-isations all around the Baltic Sea had been represented; the attend-ees of the youth forum were Baltic Sea youth leaders. He said thiswas an important aspect to consider for any further discussion inthe parliamentary forum. There had been four roundtable discus-sions with their most important topics at the moment.Mr Schoop began with the first one, on forests, wetlands and bio-diversity. For every topic, there were two recommendations. Thefirst in this field was that the youths wanted the parliamentarians tocommit to protecting biodiversity and increasing carbon sequestra-tion with common and national policy for conservation of forests,wetlands and natural rivers; forestry free from clear-cutting; and therestoration of forests and natural moors and natural floodplains.Moors were very important because they could help the climate alot by capturing more carbon in order to slow down climate change.80 Third SessionSecondly, they recommended the development and adoption ofregional strategies to deal with transboundary emergencies causedby climate change, such as forest fires and the spread of pathogens.The strategies should also include research into the causes of theseemergencies. There should also be cooperation between rescue ser-vices and common monitoring programmes to indicate the risks.Moving on to the second field, innovation, the first recommenda-tion asked the parliamentarians to fulfil the Paris Agreement byphasing out fossil fuels and investing more in renewable energysources. He believed this was more urgent than ever, pointing to thepreceding debate. The second recommendation was to supportbusinesses in their transformation to a circular practice by harmo-nising national legislation based on scientific research.Ms Jakaitė picked up the topic of life in resilient cities. They hadspoken for a better, greener, cheaper and healthier system of trans-port which would be accessible not only in the city centre but allaround the urban area. There should be more car-free zones andmore space for bikes and pedestrians. At the same time, the youthswere calling for diverse cities, with every group including the youthsbeing represented in the future planning of the cities. Moving on tothe sea and coastline resilience, the young people were calling forlegally binding quotas for fishing, in particular such diversified byspecies and mentioning different methods for fishing, includingwhat kinds of nets were permitted to be used. At the same time, theyouths very much hoped for means of fighting against pollution byregulating and reducing single-use plastics, investing in greenershipping, removing munitions and military remains from the sea –as had already been mentioned on this day –, preventing agricul-tural waste before reaching the waters and perhaps even unifyingthe bottle deposit system in the Baltic Sea region. Finally, MsJakaitė said that the young people wanted to thank the BSPC forbeing able to take part in this panel. She repeated that agreeing ononly eight recommendations had been very, very hard, and they hadquite a lot more to say. She invited the parliamentarians to chatwith the young representatives to obtain more views from the youthperspective.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby said that the parliamentarians werevery impressed by the young people’s hard work. Before opening thefloor for questions, she invited Mr Gennaro Migliore to take thefloor for his statement. She asked him to keep his presentationshort, down to two minutes.Mr Migliore thanked the chairwoman for this opportunity. It hadbeen very interesting to see the commitment of the young people.Third Session 81That was very important to him in particular. The ParliamentaryAssembly of the Mediterranean also had a youth platform that hehoped could collaborate with that of the Baltic Sea region. Hewanted to stress some points: First of all, the Mediterranean regionwas the region most affected by climate change in the world. It wasthe real hotspot for these effects. For that reason, the PAM was sointerested in developing the blue economy and to preserve the morethan 70,000 marine species especially in the Mediterranean, ofwhich 20 – 30 % were endemic, representing the highest rate ofendemic species in the world. Secondly, the effects of the Russianaggression on climate change trends should also be taken intoaccount. Specifically, this concerned the food supply and the peoplethat needed energy. He imagined it was so important to embracefully the UN Secretary General’s recommendation and call forurgent climate action as delivered at the Stockholm +50 event.However, he wanted to finish with the proposal that his side hadmade in the last month: They had been working on establishing, intheir parliaments, a new Mediterranean and Gulf Economic Com-munity for Renewable Energy. A lot of countries were relying onfossil sources, but renewable energies were required. In order toboth help their countries phase out Russian fossil fuels while con-tributing to the regional transition, the PAM would also organisethe first ever Euro-Mediterranean Economic Forum to take place inTangiers in early December 2022. Mr Migliore invited the parlia-mentarians to attend this forum that would be hosted by the parlia-ment of Morocco. At the event, the environmental and energyissues would surely constitute a key element of debate. To conclude,Mr Migliore insisted that the world could simply not afford a fur-ther delay. They had to think globally and act locally, as someonehad said, and they had to collaborate.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby opened the floor for questions.Mr Kacper Płażyński wished to talk once again about energysources. As Mr Migliore had said, of course, renewable energieswere also something that Poland was investing in. For example, inthe following year, they would be starting a great investment inwind farms on the Baltic shore. That would be huge, producingabout 10 gigawatts of energy built in about one decade. Headdressed his listeners, in particular the young people because hehad not seen nuclear energy in what they had proposed. Yet hecalled on them to remember that for solar energy, the sun was notalways shining. Sometimes, it was raining. Wind was not alwaysblowing. That was unstable energy. The European Union needed aneconomy with a stable source of energy, and there were only two:coal and nuclear power stations. All of them knew that, he claimed.82 Third SessionMore and more politicians – of which he was glad – were admittingthat, he said, sometimes in the corridors or even officially, as theminister of the environment of the Swedish government admittedthat nuclear power stations were needed because there was no otherway to have a competitive economy and to have a zero-emissioneconomy. That was the terrible or beautiful truth, and he believedall of them needed to make all the effort to build not only a com-petitive, zero-emission economy. If they wanted to help Ukraine,for example, they also needed an independent economy and inde-pendent energy sources. They were able to do that with nuclearpower stations. He mentioned that some countries were planningto build, e.g., gas hubs in Europe. He told them to rememberanother way in which they did not need to sacrifice their Europeanvalues by buying gas from Russia or at high prices from the UnitedStates of America or any other different direction. That was theextent of his speech, he said, only to add that during the group onbiodiversity and climate change, they had all agreed to put in writ-ing the words of “promoting development of zero-emission sourcesof energy” which included renewable energies and nuclear powerstations.Mr Kai Mykkänen thanked the representatives of the youth panel,noting that it had been interesting to see in what organised fashionthey had been able to tackle the challenges arising from the propo-sitions. He wanted to stress that from the Finnish perspective inparticular, he could not talk too much about the eutrophicationproblem which could be seen very concretely in their very largearchipelago area. There were thousands of islands between Ålandand Finland. In Finland, there had been a renovation fund, CITRA,that had produced a report on the economic benefits of the circulareconomy. By far, the largest effects of the circular economy thatcould be found was that if they could manage to circulate the nutri-ents within the Finnish economy rather than waste it in the sea, thatwould create a great deal of tourism for the archipelagos and thusrepresent the greatest benefit of the circular economy. Mr Mykkä-nen noted that Mr Hamro-Drotz of NEFCO had been mention-ing the financing opportunities with regard to the circular economyof nutrients. In that light, he asked if NEFCO was already lookingat projects of this kind. He noted that there were a couple of start-upcompanies that were piloting some of the technologies required toretrieve some of these nutrients from the sea – not only by fishingbut by collecting algal blooms through robotic vessels. In summer,a lot of algae were growing visibly on the water. These harvestedalgae could then be used in chemistry or the cosmetic industry andthe like. On the other hand, looking to the land, the problem wasbasically quite limited geographically to certain wastes from theThird Session 83chicken and pig industry near the Turku region. There would be theneed to invest, Mr Mykkänen noted, in bio reactors which wouldthen take care of this waste both as biogas and as fertilisers. As such,he asked if NEFCO was active in this field and whether they couldtogether increase the efforts to make the circular nutrient economyfunctional at least within Finland. The largest problem was con-cerned with the archipelago and shallow waters for them, but heconceded that the challenge was faced by the entire Baltic Searegion.Prof Jānis Vucāns of Latvia noted that he had the chance and hon-our the day before to chair one of the panels of the youth forum,specifically on the topic of resilient cities. To his mind, this topicneeded to be on the table of the BSPC Working Group on ClimateChange and Biodiversity as well. It was very important and veryinteresting. That was the first item he wished to speak about. If theywere looking at the most resilient cities, there were a lot of defini-tions. To his mind, the best was that resilient cities were those whichaggressively and practically planned and designed strategies thatwould help them develop the necessary capacity to meet tomorrow’schallenges, including shocks and stresses to their infrastructure sys-tems. Those cities needed to look at ways to become more self-suf-ficient and energy-efficient. Central to urban planning was the abil-ity to facilitate the development of greater capacity for futureproof-ing. Therefore, if they were speaking about such issues as sustaina-bility, they always had to take into account efficiency as well as theaspect of what resources were available. In that regard, Mr Vucānsfelt provoked by Mr Płażyński because the Polish MP had spokenabout the stability of the energy supply. This was an issue that theBaltic Assembly was working on in their economy and energy com-mittee. During the previous years, due to fossil energy deficit fromRussia, they had begun looking into new possibilities, how to obtaina stable energy supply, both for heating and for electricity. On thebasis of the Baltic Assembly’s contacts with the Benelux parliament,they had come to the solution of hydrogen. The hydrogen solutionas of this day was still very expensive. Year by year, though, it wasdeveloping and becoming cheaper and cheaper. Therefore, hydro-gen meant possibilities to have a storage system for wind and solarenergy. Prof Vucāns conceded that the wind was not always blow-ing, and the sun was not shining at night, so the main question wasnot just how to produce energy but rather how to store it. Accord-ingly, he believed that the Baltic-Nordic region needed to focus onthis issue of storing energy. Hydrogen was one of the options butnot the only one. This was a task for their cooperation and theirfuture activities, in his mind.84 Third SessionChairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby thanked the speakers for their con-tributions and turned to the panel. She wondered if the panellistswished to reflect on some of what they had heard.Ms Jakaitė wished to respond to the statement about nuclear energynot being included in the recommendations. She believed the youngpeople would need several years before they would agree. With theirdifferent viewpoints, it was impossible to agree on something likethis in so short an amount of time, considering nuclear power wassuch a high-stakes matter.Mr Schoop added that, in general, the young people were a little bitmore sceptical towards nuclear power because there was a short-term use of electricity, but nuclear waste would last for millions ofyears. One had to think of the generations to come and what wouldhappen with this waste. A solution had to be found for that. Therewere so many difficult questions in this regard. On top of that, stor-ing nuclear waste was very expensive. So, it was not just a matter ofsaying “Make Nuclear Power Great Again”. There had been a lot ofdebate on this topic in politics. Mr Schoop stated that they had tobe sceptical about this matter.In addition to the question from Mr Mykkänen to Mr Ham-ro-Drotz, Ms Tenfjord-Toftby asked the NEFCO representativeabout which best practices or best investments he could present tothe Conference at this point. The working group was very interestedin what Mr Hamro-Drotz considered crucial. As a follow-up, shenoted that more people than just Mr Mykkänen wanted to get intouch with him, so Ms Tenfjord-Toftby asked him to tell them thecontact information to get investments for these very important cli-mate and biodiversity investments.Mr Hamro-Drotz thanked her for starting with the very easy ques-tion of getting in touch. He pointed out NEFCO’s website whichlisted his name and contact information. He was the fund managerfor the Baltic Sea Action Plan Fund. Otherwise, he invited parlia-mentarians to speak to him in the further course of the day. He alsoasked Mr Mykkänen for his good and relevant question. Startingwith the bigger picture, for the Baltic Sea, many of the problemswere transboundary in nature. As they all knew about climatechange, that made them more difficult to solve because most coun-tries – including parliamentarians – were not necessarily that eagerto give money to projects that would spend it outside their nationalborders. These problems, though, were indeed transboundary andneeded to be solved internationally – or at least in cooperation withone’s neighbours. That was a challenge. There was indeed a reluc-Third Session 85tance to finance projects with state funds that were used outsidenational borders.Mr Hamro-Drotz moved towards the concrete question about thecircular economy as well as circulating nutrients. His personal opinionwas that there was very little need to import any more nutrients, suchas chemical fertilisers, to other countries. Instead, one could andshould better use what was already there. There was an excess of nutri-ents flowing out through their waters in all of their countries. Therewas no need to point the finger of blame at any one country. Allnations had an excess of nutrients flowing out. Taking Finland as anexample, within their archipelago, a large part of the problem was dueto nutrients flowing out from their own fields and forests. The ques-tion then was how to better collect these nutrients – or even better, tokeep them in the fields before ending up in the rivers. There were somenovel technologies experimenting with this approach. A growingtrend of regenerative agriculture was present, meaning a return to howland had been farmed previously – circulating crops, having largerbuffer zones, trying to tie nutrients to the soil with a minimumamount of tilling, for example leaving the fields green throughout theyear. Forestry was another target. He used Finland as an exampleagain. Forests and peatlands were being transformed into fields, partlyto make room for places where wastes from animal husbandry couldbe spread – creating a lot of excess nutrients heading for the water-sheds. He liked the examples by Mr Mykkänen, such as collectingalgae from the water. He had heard about some of these projects. ForNEFCO’s part, they did finance Nordic SMEs and start-ups butmainly projects that were of an international nature. So, they were sit-uated outside the Nordic countries. Here, NEFCO was in discussionwith their owners – the Nordic countries – to also start having moreprojects within the Nordic countries. For larger bio-refineries and thelike, there was the Nordic Investment Bank that could provide thattype of funding. The Baltic Sea Action Plan Fund that he had men-tioned already allowed for very good opportunities for such early pilotprojects. Here, they could finance projects in the Nordic countries aswell as all of the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. This was a goodexample of the problem that he had raised in the beginning, that thechallenges were of a transboundary nature and therefore requiredfinancing options such as the Baltic Sea Action Plan Fund that couldfinance these good projects, no matter where they were located. How-ever, he noted that he had been speaking for a long time and would behappy to continue this discussion at a later point.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby addressed Ms Inger Melander, not-ing that she was representing not just herself but all NGOs. Thechairwoman wondered what, from Ms Melander’s point of view,86 Third Sessionwas the most urgent action that policymakers could make and pri-oritise. She knew how hard it was to prioritise, hoping for somegood advice from the WWF representative on the way.Ms Melander pointed out that she was working with fisheries andmarine conservation, but the aspect wished to raise extended to allterrestrial fields. It was necessary to implement everything that hadbeen written down in the legislation and the various conventions.The CBD had been mentioned as well as the SDGs – 14 for theoceans -, the Marine Framework Directive, the Habitat Directive –all of these documents were stating the same thing. It was knownwhat had to be done, the scientific research underpinning it wasalready in place. None of this was novel, all of it had been knownfor ages. In order to get things done in the Baltic Sea region, theyrequired an ecosystem-based management approach. They alsoneeded to apply the precautionary approach rather than waiting formore research to appear. As she had just said, it was already knownwhat was going on. The ecosystem-based approach was crucial bothfor fisheries management and ocean management.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby thanked her, mentioning that it sounded soeasy when Ms Melander was saying it. She mentioned the discus-sion that kept cropping up in the working group, namely, how toget the people to work with them. Many of the best practices thatthey had seen had been at the local level, in the local communities.In order to make environmental projects in the Baltic Sea regionsuccessful, the whole society needed to be a part of it, from govern-ments down to the local areas and the local farmers and inhabitants.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby wondered how one could succeed in that. Shesaid she could ask this question of all of them but addressed herinquiry to Ms Melander, how to get people to work with them. Ifthey did not, they would not succeed.Ms Melander reiterated that one had to make sure the measureswere implemented. It should not be made about individual citizens.This was something for which there were elected officials. That waswhat democracy was for. The people had elected officials to do thesethings and to make sure that legislation was implemented. Shecould do lots of things as a private citizen, such as being carefulabout what to consume – whether that was beef or sea food – orrecycling. Once again, if there was no proper implementation orcontrol, monitoring, then it did not really matter what the individ-ual person wanted to do. It was all good having these best practicesand projects, but if the policymakers and decisionmakers were noton board – who might only be there for a short period of time, soimplementation might not be that important for them. She believedThird Session 87that this matter was above the little people, it was up to the deci-sionmakers.Mr Hamro-Drotz said that one key reflection or recommendationof his was based on his previous work on both climate change-re-lated projects as well as Baltic Sea-related projects. That recommen-dation was that it seemed to be much more difficult to find finan-cially viable projects related to the problems in the Baltic Sea. Banksand also private capital went to projects that were bankable, mean-ing that eventually, they would be able to stand on their own feetfinancially. That seemed to be much more difficult in a Baltic Seaperspective, related to climate change, when there already was agood business case with renewable energy and the like. His pointwas that there was a need for legislation to force the way in a certaindirection, and there was a need for soft money – or grant financingor cheap loans – to get the ball rolling. Solving these problems inthe Baltic Sea – including the new technologies that had been men-tioned – would take quite a lot of money as well as time before theseprojects would become financially viable. Only at that point wouldthey start attracting private capital. That was a greater problem fromthe Baltic Sea perspective rather than the climate change perspec-tive.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby addressed the representatives of the YouthForum. One of the members of the forum had called himself anactivist. In many ways, the youth representatives were in a way, andmany of the attendees were hoping that they would be taking thestep from being activists to being politicians. She wondered, fromtheir point of view, how they could get everybody to realise whatMs Melander had said about legislation. Even with legislation, MsTenfjord-Toftby pointed out that people could still oppose suchmeasures. An example was wind power. When people were opposedto something, it was very difficult to get the development to go inthe right direction. The chairwoman asked the youths to take on theroles of activist and politician in saying what was the most urgentlegislative step to pursue.Mr Schoop noted that this was a tough question. In the end, hebelieved that now was the time to act, and they had big ideas. Oneshould not look at the past but develop new ideas. He allowed thattalking about matters was also important, noting that his colleagueand he were both involved in the Baltic Sea Youth Platform of theCBSS. They were meeting regularly there every two weeks to discussBaltic Sea policies. It was really important to talk and find ideas soas to go forward. For him, a crucial matter at the moment was thematter of dumped ammunitions. All the technologies had been88 Third Sessiondeveloped, all the necessary knowledge was in place, but the politi-cal will – as well as the budget – was now needed. He pointed outthat the German presidency of the BSPC would also focus on thismatter. That was very much a matter that would have to be done inthe next period.Ms Jakaitė added that involving everybody was tricky. Basically,that was a matter of marketing for climate change. And for that, tar-get groups were needed. It was very hard to devise one campaign forall people. If talking about the younger generation, she believed itvery important to speak about education. While their minds weregrowing, they were shaping the view of the world, and they couldactually shape it the way it would be beneficial for future genera-tions to come.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby opened the floor for questions.An attendee assured her that he had very concrete questions for allof the participants. It was a kind of philosophical one, wonderingwhether young people were creators or destroyers of a green future.Ms Melander replied that she had seen a quote in that regard, thatthey were actually the creators of their own demise. They had all thisknowledge and all this technology, but they were not using it thecorrect way. Another quote applicable to the Baltic Sea region wasthat one could not negotiate the melting point of ice, and the samewent for nature. They were beyond the negotiation period concern-ing nature. She was pessimistic and presently considered humanityto be the destroyers, yet they had the power and the possibility to becreators if they chose wisely.Mr Hamro-Drotz was grateful for the thought-provoking ques-tion. It was his view that humanity was still the destroyer but doingso at a slower pace than previously. Using the Baltic Sea as an exam-ple, the actual flow of nutrients into the waters had been reduceddrastically since the 1980s. He added the positive remark that theywere going in the right direction but still heading downward at themoment, so they needed to turn the curve upwards and be bolderin making the right choices before being forced into them.Ms Jakaitė said that the young people would be the creators of agreen future.Another attendee asked about biodiversity in the Baltic Sea, espe-cially connected to fisheries. He agreed completely with Ms Mel-ander that hands-on action was needed and that most of the prob-Third Session 89lems were well known among the people living nearby. In particu-lar, he was speaking about large-scale trawling on spawning springherring in the Baltic Sea and the effects of that. It was well knownthat the Baltic herring had an important role in the function of thefood chain and the habitats of the ocean, both as prey and predator.He would like to hear the panel’s remarks on the future effects ofthis type of fishing in sensitive habitats and on biodiversity as wellas the social and economic development of coastal societies.Ms Tenfjord-Toftby noted the plethora of crises facing the world atthe moment, such as the war in Ukraine in addition to the pan-demic coming on top of climate change. As such, she wonderedhow to keep the focus on their goal of mitigating climate changeand biodiversity in these times of unrest and conflicts and economicdecline. Humorously, she added that this was a very small questionto end this panel debate on.Ms Melander replied to the question from the audience. Consider-ing sustainability with regard to social issues and economics. Eco-logical sustainability was the foundation for both the social and thefinancial sustainability. With regards to the herring, that was a big-ger issue than just monitoring the respective fish stocks. To beginwith, an ecosystem-based approach was needed. Currently, thequote advice from ISIS was only given for the target species, so theywere not looking at the different structures of the population, suchas size and age. That had to be put in place as well. The Swedish gov-ernment was looking into expanding the trawler ban out to twelvenautical miles in order to try to mitigate the effects on the herringstock and also thus improving the food chain, primarily for the cod.There was a huge imbalance in that respect in the Baltic Sea. Therewere the industrial fisheries, the large pelagic trawlers. She under-lined that it did not really matter who was conducting the fishing,but it had to be made sure that anyone using the fish was conduct-ing sustainable fishing practices. That could be the quotas or a tax,or one could look at where the fishing was taking place, whethermore MPAs were needed, more integrated systems. Moreover, sheunderlined again the need for an ecosystem-based approach, notjust looking at the species you were interested in but also how thisfishery was affecting other habitats, the bottom and different otherspecies.As for the question by the chairwoman on how to keep focus on themitigating efforts in these harsh times, Ms Melander said oneshould remain hopeful. She conceded that it was sometimes quitehard to keep working with these issues and stay hopeful and posi-tive, thinking that it would all work out. However, she was always90 Third Sessionlike a broken record, saying that an ecosystem-based approach wasneeded for the fisheries and ocean management.Mr Hamro-Drotz believed that humans were a bit flawed in theway they thought. They would have to change that. The war inUkraine and the pandemic had shown that – once these had hap-pened – people would find mean as well as the financing to at leasttry to solve them. All of this would have been much cheaper if thathad been prevented. Prevention was much cheaper than reaction,but it was much harder if not impossible to finance. This was hissuggestion – to change the way that people thought and preventthese things from escalating before it was too late.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby noted that the last words for this ses-sion would come from the young people, asking them to give theConference something positive to go home with.Mr Schoop agreed on the financing. Waiting for a catastrophe tohappen was a lot more expensive than acting right now. As a per-sonal example, he mentioned that his parents had built a zero-emis-sion house the year before, and now they were safe from the risingfuel and electricity prices. So, that approach also worked at thesmall scale. As for ending words, he said that he was hoping that allof the parliamentarians were eager to work with the young people,underlining the importance of talking about matters of importance.He further hoped that the parliamentarians would incorporateyoung people’s ideas into their work but also reach out to the youthswhen the former were in the policymaking process. The young peo-ple were keen to help in that matter as well.Ms Jakaitė agreed, noting that together, they could get a little morecreative on the prevention measures to avoid the harshest costs.Chairwoman Tenfjord-Toftby thanked the young people for thelast words of this panel. She asked the audience to applaud the pan-ellists. With that, she concluded the third session.Fourth Session 91FOURTH SESSIONDemographic Challenges in Lightof the Russian Invasion of Uk-raine; Migration, Labour Marketand the Social Welfare ModelMs Carola VeitSession Chair Carola Veit cordially welcomed everyone to thefourth session of the 31st BSPC and introduced her co-chair, MrHans Wallmark, adding that both of them were BSPC Rappor-teurs on Migration and Integration. Mr Wallmark had been chair,Ms Veit co-chair of the respective BSPC working group in whichthey had intensively dealt with the migration issue from 2017 to2019. She explained that the core issue – labour markets, migrationand social welfare – was very much affecting all of them in light ofthe Russian invasion of Ukraine. Given its dimension, this raised anumber of questions and challenges to which answers had to befound even though many measures had already been taken very fastand in admirable manner on the EU level and in many countries.At its meeting in April, the BSPC Standing Committee had dealtintensively with the issue of migration from Ukraine to Poland, aprocess still unfolding, with many aspects yet unknown. ProfessorPaweł Kaczmarczyk, Director of the Centre of Migration Research,Poland, had presented the whole dimension of the issue, includingits development so far. The BSPC had reported that in detail on our92 Fourth Sessionwebsite, Ms Veit noted, adding that it was very much worth readingit. The current situation had intensified challenges that the coun-tries of the Baltic Sea had already been facing: first of all, housing,but also education, child and health care, the labour market and theattitudes towards newcomers. Systemic and massive interventionshad been necessary. The EU and the individual member states, intheir different ways, – as already mentioned – had reacted quicklyand comprehensively.Chairwoman Veit voiced her deep appreciation that Ms YlvaJohansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, wouldbe speaking to the Conference today on this issue. This would befollowed by Ms Justina Jakštienė, the Vice-Minister for SocialSecurity and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania. She would dis-cuss the issue in more detail from the Lithuanian perspective andwith regard to the measures taken there. The third speaker of thissession would be Professor Maciej Duszczyk from the Centre forMigration Research, University of Warsaw. His presentation andspeech would be an ideal complement to the one by ProfessorPaweł Kaczmarczyk in Warsaw, the chairwoman noted.Ms Veit noted that the speeches would start with Ms Ylva Johans-son, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs. The BSPCwere very eager to learn more about the European response to thosefleeing the war in Ukraine and the 10-Point Plan for stronger Euro-pean coordination on welcoming those people.Speech by Ms Ylva Johansson, the EuropeanCommissioner for Home AffairsMs Johansson was happy to address the Baltic Sea ParliamentaryConference but also to be in the Swedish parliament. She had beenan elected member of this parliament for the first time in 1988, sothis was a homecoming for her. For most Europeans, Russia’s inva-sion of Ukraine had taken them by surprise. Ms Johansson pointedout that that had been less so in the Baltic region. They had lived inthe shadow of a large and aggressive neighbour for many years, eventhough they had not really been prepared for this invasion and war.The lessons of oppression were still alive in this region. Europe’sresponse was also a surprise to many, she believed. The EuropeanUnion had responded quickly, with unity, with strong actions, withsolidarity. That had surprised Putin. To be honest, she added, it hadalso surprised many politicians in the EU, seeing that they were ableto actually act as they had done and as they were doing. They hadagreed on comprehensive sanctions. They were welcoming refugeesfrom Ukraine. This warm welcome of refugees from Ukraine, sheFourth Session 93Ms Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for Home Affairsadded, made her proud to be a European. Only a few days after thewar had started, Ms Johansson had been at the border in Romania,she had visited Slovakia, Poland and later Moldova. She had seen inpractice how people were coming and how people were welcomed.There had been so many ordinary citizens that had worked as vol-unteers, so many NGOs, the local authorities, all the border guardsthat had been working extra time without pay. Everybody had reallystepped up. The speaker remembered asking one of the volunteersin Romania why they were doing this, why they had decided tocome here and support the refugees. The volunteer had answeredthat they were human beings after all. Ms Johansson opined thatthis was very true. This had been seen all over Europe. As just oneexample from Sweden, she mentioned a man called Rolf and hisdaughter who had welcomed a single father from Ukraine with fivechildren. These were living in that home now. This father had beenallowed to leave Ukraine because he was the sole carer of these chil-dren. Ms Johansson reiterated that this had been repeated in somany places. Ordinary citizens had opened up their homes to wel-come a single person or a whole family to support them. And theyhad been doing that month after month. Of course, that came witha lot of challenges; she hoped that this issue could be discussed evenfurther.The Europeans had also acted in solidarity with the refugees as aunion. The war had broken out on a Thursday morning. On Sun-day, the EU had held an extraordinary Council session with theministers of the interior. At the meeting, they had discussed the sit-uation, and Ms Johansson had proposed they should activate theTemporary Protection Directive. After that, there had been anotherextraordinary Council session on Thursday, one week after the war94 Fourth Sessionhad broken out. There, all the ministers had agreed – unanimously– to activate the Temporary Protection Directive. The speakerunderlined that this had been a unique situation. As her audiencewas aware, migration had been a divisive topic, especially in theCouncil. Furthermore, this directive had been in existence for morethan 20 years. Yet, it had never ever been used because of politicaldifficulties in the Council. Now, though, it had been activated, andthat had meant that all the people fleeing from Ukraine had beenwelcome and had been given rights – the same in all the memberstates. They had the protection right, the right to stay, legally, butalso the right for children to go to school, the right to healthcare,the right for support on housing and to find a job, the right towork, and they had also been granted the right for social support.The speaker saw this a historic decision that the EU had managedto activate this directive.At the same time, this decision had brought about new challenges.She gave one of those as an example, noting that she had spoken tothe Council the year before when the trafficking of human beingshad been on the agenda. This had been one of the concerns fromthe very first day of the war. Everyone assembled in this hall knewthat every time there were big flows of refugees moving, there wouldalways be those criminals trying to take advantage of the situationand traffic people and use vulnerable people in a vulnerable situa-tion. Even in the first week of the war, the EU had activatedeverything to protect refugees from trafficking. The EU anti-traf-ficking coordinator had started her network, all the anti-traffickingcoordinators in all the member states had done the same, a specialtask force in Europol had been put together; now, the EU had alsoadopted a new extraordinary anti-trafficking action plan that waspart of the 10-point plan to address the Ukrainian refugee situation.So far, there had been very few confirmed cases of trafficking, MsJohansson pointed out. Of course, she was aware that there mightbe more that had not been discovered yet. But she also hoped thatthe quick and firm actions of the EU had prevented some of thepeople from becoming victims of trafficking. The speaker said that,especially around the Baltic Sea, there had been huge solidarity. TheEU was keeping an index of all the member states where the Ukrain-ian refugees currently resided. That was compared with the size ofthe country or the population. She pointed out that Poland, Esto-nia, Latvia, Lithuania were among the top six countries in Europereceiving Ukrainian refugees. That was really impressive. MsJohansson added that they very much needed to support this evenmore, noting that Ms Justina Jakštienė would be speaking aboutwhat this looked like in practice in a member state. What the Euro-pean side was also doing was that they were launching an initiativeFourth Session 95called Safe Homes to support and manage all those who were nowopening their homes to refugees. These people needed help becausethere was a kind of fatigue setting in. It was important to step upand have a response on the part of the society to support these peo-ple. Ms Johansson would launch this Safe Homes initiative in thefollowing week.The EU was also stepping up letting children into the schools. Sofar, there had been around four hundred thousand Ukrainian chil-dren in the member states going to school. Almost two hundredthousand were already going to school every day in Poland; onehundred and thirty thousand were in German schools. She believedthis to be of the utmost importance. This was part of having somenormality for these children in a situation where nothing was nor-mal for them. Of course, the children were also very worried aboutthe situation. The EU was also helping in getting jobs for people.They had set up a special talent pool pilot scheme to match the ref-ugees’ skills with employers’ needs at the European level as well. MsJohansson went on to provide some figures on where they were atthis point. Around 6.5 million refugees had entered the EuropeanUnion since the war had broken out. She repeated that number foremphasis. Most of them had done so via Poland but also more than1 million from Romania, Moldova as well as other parts. Around2.5 million had gone back to Ukraine. That meant that approxi-mately 4 million refugees still resided in the European Union. Thatrepresented the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. She addedthat at the borders at this point, there were more people going backto Ukraine than entering the European Union – perhaps, though, itwas a little more equal. That was the current situation. Out of thoseapproximately 4 million people in the EU, some 3.2 million hadapplied for temporary protection. The EU had now set up – inrecord time – a registration platform so that all of them could beregistered on the same EU platform. That meant that the EU wouldknow where people were but also avoid them being double-regis-tered, thus also avoiding abuse of the system. She hoped they wouldsoon have a more correct figure of how many people actually werein the EU. After all, the refugees also needed to apply for temporaryprotection to be able to stay. One of the big things they had achievedwas having set up a solidarity platform. That had been launched inthe first week of the war. This solidarity platform met twice a week,consisting of all the member states and the Commission and agen-cies. It moreover had different sub-groups. Thus, the EU was work-ing the solidarity in practice on an every-day basis. Within this sol-idarity platform, they were dealing with issues such as a lot of chil-dren with disabilities – more than could be handled in some regionsor countries, thus looking at whether other nations could step in to96 Fourth Sessionoffer support. There were also special challenges with raped womenwho needed special support; the same as before applied here,namely, looking if others could step in to help those regions thatcould not provide adequate support. These kinds of practical thingswere handled within the solidarity platform. In addition, the EUhad also stepped up financially, having used the EU funds as flexi-bly as possible – and quite rapidly, she added. They had put forthone billion euros from the Care Package. Ten member states hadalready reprogrammed their cohesion funds to use these, includingGermany and Poland. More would follow in her view. There were3.5 billion euros in the pre-financing from the React EU, an addi-tional four hundred million euros from funds and emergency sys-tems. In addition, some flexibility had also been established in howto use this money, so that it could be used per head of refugees,rather than as set out in the normal programmes. Some of the fundswere also using paper results rather than receipts. Thus, memberstates could show what they were doing with the money.In conclusion, Ms Johansson said she was looking forward to hear-ing more practical things from Lithuania and how they were dealingwith the challenges on the ground. Furthermore, in this situation ofthe biggest refugee crisis since World War II, she pointed out thatshe had presented a new Pact on Migration and Asylum for theEuropean Union almost two years earlier. For that long, they hadbeen negotiated that. The preceding Friday, they had actually man-aged to get an agreement on three important parts of this solidarityPact on Migration and Asylum. That also showed that memberstates were now ready to really set up a true European system to dealwith migration and asylum. That, she underscored, was very muchneeded. Ms Johansson cautioned her listeners that this was notover yet. Putin was fighting a war of attrition; Russian artillery wasdestroying Ukrainian cities house by house, street by street, schoolby school. It was necessary to turn into practical reality the rightsand protection given to the Ukrainian refugees. They had the rightto temporary protection, but now that had to be turned into schoolsand housing and jobs in the member states. Of course, it was a hugechallenge to deal with that. It was necessary to work together and toshare burdens together. Demanding of Europeans not only unityand solidarity but also persistence, endurance, perseverance, MsJohansson was convinced they could rise to this challenge. Theycould build on strong foundations and a heartfelt solidarity withUkraine. The EU was also currently setting up the reconstructionplan from Rebuild Ukraine to prepare for the time when they couldactually start rebuilding Ukraine and to give all the support that wasneeded.Fourth Session 97Chairwoman Veit thanked Ms Johansson for her presentation. Sheopened the floor for comments or questions.Mr Kai Mykkänen very much appreciated Ms Johansson’s workin the Commission and fondly remembered some conversationsbetween them when he had briefly been Minister of the Interior ofFinland. She had given him some good notes on how to deal withmigration in those days. He was wondering whether the Commis-sion already had some preliminary guesses how many people fromUkraine were about to stay for about five to ten years. He concededthat nobody knew how the war would end, but usually in this kindof conflict, it took a long time before reconstruction was ongoing.As such, he asked what kind of special measures there were to makesure the refugees would integrate well. Moreover, he asked for ashort comment on a matter currently tackled in Finland. Mr Myk-känen had just spoken with his social-democratic colleague howthey were dealing with the emergency legislation regarding the pos-sible situation if Russia would do something similar to what theyhad done to Belarus in the preceding autumn. The question herewas how to send a clear message – also legally – early enough not tobe part of such an operation. He thought that it would be a poorchoice to first give the impression that one can freely come but thenrenege on that, so that people would be stuck between the borders.It would be better to say clearly if there was an emergency situation,then things could be cut down for a while.Mr Johannes Schraps thanked the Commissioner for her veryimportant contribution to the BSPC Conference. He wanted tothank her for the words she had found. In particular, he underlinedthat it was very important to think beyond the borders of the Euro-pean Union in their solidarity. In the BSPC, they were used to this,having members that were not members of the EU. But especially asthe Rapporteur responsible for the eastern partnership countries andas chair of the German-Moldovan forum, Mr Schraps was veryhappy to hear that Ms Johansson had been to Moldova. He hadbeen in the country in the previous week as well. Comparing thepopulation of Moldova with those of other countries, that nationhad the highest influx of people seeking shelter. The country neededsupport from the European Union as well. For that reason, he saw itas very necessary that their solidarity went beyond the EU borders.Mr Kacper Płażyński said that Poland was in a dire situation, con-sidering the number of four million refugees from Ukraine – heemphasised that they were real refugees. About half of them werestaying in Poland. Poland was very hospitable. The nation hadopened their homes and hearts, but that cost a lot. Approximately98 Fourth Sessionuntil the end of the present year, in the Polish budget, there wouldbe at least 20 billion zlotys or about 5 billion euros. He reiteratedthat this was a minimum expectation. On the other hand, the fundsthat the European Commission had granted to Poland was about144 million euros, from the migration fund. The other amountswere from different chapters of the programmes that were actuallygranted to Poland earlier, to his best knowledge. On yet anotherhand, there was for example this crisis which had started seven yearsearlier. This concerned migrants – some of them were also refugees– coming from Africa especially and had stayed in large numbers,also in Turkey. The European Union was paying huge sums – bil-lions of euros – to Turkey to create refugee camps on their territoryand the like. When comparing the help that the European Unionwas giving to a country outside the EU to that given to Poland whichwas avant-garde in helping Ukrainian real refugees, his side felt a lit-tle bit disappointed. Voicing his hope in addressing the Commis-sioner, he asked Ms Johansson for some words of comfort sayingthat the amount of help would be much larger and that he could goback to Poland to say that Ms Johansson had confirmed there wouldbe better money. He added that Poland would help Ukrainians aslong as was necessary, but they would very much appreciate serioushelp from their friendship in the European Commission.Ms Johansson first answered the question about how many peoplewere going to stay in Europe. Nobody knew, of course. Usually, ref-ugees wanted to go back, but usually, they didn’t. That was the nor-mal situation. The present one was a little bit different, as a matter offact. The usual refugee situation was that a male came first, got asy-lum, and then, the women and children followed him. Now, thingswere going the opposite way around. Moreover, the arrivals hadreceived their right to stay immediately, thanks to the temporaryprotection. Actually, they saw a lot of people in a circular movement.They were going back for a while to Ukraine, then they were return-ing to the European Union before travelling to Ukraine again. Thiswas happening in some of the border regions quite frequently. Therefugees went back, checked their houses and relatives. As such, theCommission had no idea how many people would stay. An impor-tant aspect would be when schools were starting up after the sum-mer break. All those that had children would have to decide whetherthe children should start attending school in a member state or backin Ukraine. That would be a decisive moment for quite a number ofpeople, affecting where they would like to be for the coming year atleast. In addition, they would know quite a bit more with better reg-istration in place. There was quite a difference between 4 million and3.2 million, she pointed out. Thus, there might be less than 4 mil-lion refugees, perhaps closer to the 3.2 million figure of people actu-Fourth Session 99ally in the EU. They would know after a while. People could stay forthree months without visas, but after that, they had to register. Astime went by, they would be seeing more accurate figures in thisregard. Then, of course, things could change. The Commission wascontinuously making plans as for what would happen in the future.Of course, things could also get worse. But she said that it wasimportant right now to also prepare to support those that would liketo go back to Ukraine, to have a good possibility to do so. She addedthat she believed it was great what Finland was doing with the emer-gency plans, noting that the Finnish government had reached out tothe Commission before preparing their new legislation, to make surethat it was in line with EU key points. This was really important, MsJohansson underlined.She further agreed with Mr Schraps that it was important to reachout to other countries, especially to Moldova. She was in close con-tact with the country; she had just been texting with her colleague,the Minister of the Interior of Moldova, Ms Ana Revenco, thismorning. Ms Johansson explained that just before the war had bro-ken out, the minister of the interior had called her and had askedfor Frontex to be sent there because the country could no longerprotect their borders. The Commissioner’s first reaction had been tothink about how usually, negotiating a status agreement took atleast one year. So, this had looked like it was going to be difficult.But what happened was that they had finished the agreement in lessthan two weeks. When she had signed the agreement, a few hourslater, the first Frontex officers had deployed to Moldova. Ms Johans-son had been there, visiting them. Now they were working closelytogether with Moldova when it came to other security issues. Theywere helping with transiting out of Moldova. More than four hun-dred thousand people had entered the country; around eighty toninety thousand people were still there. The EU Commission washelping with transport to Romania. Member states had said thatthey could take in at least twenty thousand in relocation measuresfrom Moldova. As a matter of fact, though, it had been a bit diffi-cult to find those refugees who would like to be relocated to EUmember states. Less than two thousand had left so far. Nevertheless,the Commission was still working on this issue and were hoping itcould continue. Therefore, she reiterated that she fully agreed withMr Schraps.Ms Johansson tackled the issue of Poland next, agreeing thatPoland obviously needed a lot of money in this situation. She alsowanted to make one thing clear: What the Commission could dowas using the money that had already been in the budget. Thisbudget had been decided by the co-legislators – the Parliament and100 Fourth Sessionthe Council. The Commission could not find any new money orre-do the budget without the co-legislators. But they were at thebeginning of the period of the MFF. That meant that there was a lotof money to use, especially for Poland. There had just been a deci-sion made: There were 63 billion euros for Poland in the resilienceand recovery fund. These could also be used to deal with the refugeesituation. There was one condition for Poland, that was to reinstallthe judges and to have a new chamber of evaluation of the judges.This was not rocket science to deliver on that, and that was a lot ofmoney. She noted that Mr Płażyński was smiling, but Ms Johans-son insisted that she wished to be clear on money. It was not like theCommission had some secret money somewhere they could find;the only thing that was possible was to use the money that was inthe budget. There was a lot of money there for Poland that could beused for this situation. They might come to a situation where therewas a time to re-do the whole MFF. But that situation would not bethe case before the money already accumulated was used. And therewas a lot of money that had not been used yet. The migration fundswere not really the ones to deal with the costs of housing and school-ing and healthcare. There were other funds for that. The migrationfunds were only for the immediate need at the borders and thereception facility. So, the big money was in the other funds – in thecohesion funds, in the regional funds, in the social class funds andin the resilience and recovery funds. The Commission had made itpossible to use this money for the refugee situation as well.Ms Alske Freter from Hamburg thanked the Commissioner for herinput. She agreed that there had been great solidarity and greatunity. This was good of course regarding refugees from Ukraine. Atthe same time, though, there were still lots of refugees from Afghan-istan, Syria who had also suffered from wars in their countries, andthey were still stuck in many refugee camps along the Europeanborders and without any perspective. She believed they did have apoint when asking now why the Ukrainians rather than them. Inthe end, they were talking about human rights which should beequal for everybody. When the camp in Moria had burned down,many countries – including Germany – had said they did not havethe capacity to evacuate all of the people. That had been 13,000people, and now the state of Hamburg alone had received morethan that in Ukrainian refugees. Another point was that peoplewere drowning in the Mediterranean Sea every day. Ships rescuingthese people did not find a port, and the rescuers ended up beingsued. Her question was whether Ms Johansson thought that – dueto the Ukrainian war and how the Ukrainian refugees were dealtwith – there would be a change in the minds and hearts of the Euro-pean countries on the topic of migration policy, so that it would beFourth Session 101based on human rights again. These, she reiterated, should be equalfor everybody. The alternative would be living through a particularcase because it was Ukraine and so close to the EU.Ms Anne Shepley noted that she was from the Green party in Schw-erin and her colleague from Hamburg had taken half of her ques-tion. She was going to ask in the same direction although slightlydifferent. Ms Shepley was working a lot with migrant organisations– including the Ukrainians who had come to Germany in 2014/2015,with the movements of that time. They were also asking why para-graph 24 had not been applied to them at that time. Many were say-ing they had not even known about this tool in the European group.She wondered what Ms Johansson thought about this, whetherthere were discussions about this inequality at the European level.After all, people like Ms Shepley were asked this question frequently.She received phone calls every day at the moment from people ask-ing what about them. The problem was not only a European prob-lem, she conceded; it was a problem that every European memberstate – and every other country receiving refugees – had to respondto, so basically everybody. Migration was a big problem. Wars werea big problem. Ms Shepley wished to reinforce Ms Freter’s pointthat they were talking about human rights, about wars, and theycould not say that the war in one country enabled more action thanthat in another country. At the end of the day, people were fleeingfrom destruction, from death and horrible things happening tothem. Therefore, she would like to have an overview from MsJohansson concerning what was being talked about and if this topiceven had anything to do with her day-to-day business because MsShepley did not know whether that was being considered or wasonly seen at the regional level or perhaps in Berlin.Mr Jarosław Wałęsa explained he was inspired to ask this questionbecause they were now considering something very important.Because of Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, the biggest exporterof grain had no opportunity to supply the countries of NorthernAfrica. So, famine could be expected in very real and very shorttime. In that respect, he asked if there were any contingency plansfor the people who would be trying to escape this famine fromplaces like Africa and heading towards European shores. This wouldput additional pressure on European migration policies.Commissioner Johansson pointed out that there were differencesbetween the refugees from Ukraine and those from Afghanistan andSyria while there are also several similarities. All of them were flee-ing from war, they were fleeing from the same kind of violence andoppression, and they were all human beings seeking protection. The102 Fourth Sessiondifference was that those from Ukraine were giving the temporaryprotection. That was not the same as asylum. It came with somerights; in some member states, it was better, and in some memberstates, it was less than for those who had received asylum. It wastemporary, she reiterated, lasting only for one year. It could be pro-longed for another year but at most for three years. After that, pro-tection would end. It could last no longer. If one applied for asy-lum, then one could stay for a longer period, perhaps extending tothe whole life, and one had the right to be reunited with one’s fam-ily in the place of asylum. So, there were different kinds of legisla-tion. She did not wish to call one better and the other worse; theywere different, acting in different ways. She heard that they weredealing with people differently, but she did not appreciate that asdifferent kinds of legislation were being applied to different groups.Regarding the question of why the Temporary Protection Directivehad not been used in 2014/2015, she agreed that that was a reallygood question. She had to be a politician in this matter as she hadbeen one in Sweden at that time. She had been responsible for theoverall situation dealing with migration, even though she had notbeen the migration minister. Her question then had been whereEurope was when it was needed. That proved to be a lesson she hadtaken with her to Brussels and a part of why she had wanted thisportfolio as Commissioner. She would like to show that Europecould do so much more together when they were working togetherfacing a crisis like the refugee crisis. Ms Johansson added that theywere indeed much better prepared at this point. Moreover, she hadto say that there was a political will in place to use the TemporaryProtection Directive. In her view, it was good that they were lessideological and more pragmatic when it came to dealing with hugerefugee challenges. Regarding the search and rescue cases, she saw agood thing in the agreement the Council had reached – although itstill needed agreement from parliament. The Council had reachedan agreement the previous Friday specifying a specific search andrescue category in the registration. They had also agreed on reloca-tion for people in need of protection that had come to the EUthrough, for example, search and rescue cases. That could be part ofdealing with this issue. The Commission had also set up a specialworking group handling search and rescue cases between memberstates. The Commission did not have a formal role in this matterbecause that was in the member states’ competence, but they werefacilitating talks between them on how to deal with this situation.Regarding the food and security issue in Africa, that certainly wasalready here, she had to state. This could lead to famine but also tomuch more security-related issues in Africa because food insecurityoften led to the strengthening of terrorist or criminal groups andFourth Session 103could also worsen things very rapidly. Important in this regard wasto reach out along the routes. That also concerned the differencebetween Ukrainian and other refugees was that Ukraine was a bor-dering country. Other refugees were heading to the EU along routeswhere they could be supported on their travel as well, rather thanwaiting for them to reach Europe’s external borders. This was impor-tant. The most vital thing in preparing and continuing contingencyplans for a worst-case situation in Africa was to reach out to thecountries and support people directly there with food, with ade-quate measures that were needed and also to help them with secu-rity issues. They should not wait for stronger terrorist groups toform or different kinds of insecurity to emerge that could really leadpeople to flee and risk their lives in even larger numbers. But it wasa real threat, she stressed, not especially for the refugee situation inEurope but rather for people’s lives. This was very much somethingto take into account.Co-chair Hans Wallmark thanked the Commissioner, acknowl-edging that she had an appointment coming up and would have toleave. He thanked her again for being present at the Conferencewhich was very much appreciated.The next speaker would be Justina Jakštienė from Lithuania. MrWallmark also saw the deputy head of the embassy of Lithuaniahere in Stockholm and welcomed him. The ambassador from Latviahad also been at the Conference the day before. The co-chair notedthat their attendance was appreciated as well.Speech by Ms Justina Jakštienė, Vice-Minister forSocial Security and Labour, Republic of LithuaniaMs Jakštienė was honoured to be at the Conference and sent thewarmest regards from the Lithuanian Minister for Social Securityand Labour, Ms Monika Navickienė. She had not been able to par-ticipate on this day, and Ms Jakštienė was here to present all theinformation on Lithuania. Of course, these times were quite tensefor everyone, and everyone was deeply moved by the war in Ukraine.Lithuania expressed huge solidarity, not only by words but also byworks, with the Ukrainian people. The Baltic country had sufferedfifty years of occupation by Russia several decades earlier, and Lith-uania had always been very sensitive to any Russian question whichhad been solved in the EU or other organisations. They had alwaysbeen asked by other OECD countries why Lithuania had been sosensitive to Russian issues and why the country could not ever getinto any dialogue with Russia. That might be because of the hugeperiod of occupation, and after fifty years, they could still recognise104 Fourth SessionMs Justina Jakštienė, Vice-Minister for Social Security and Labour,Republic of Lithuaniathe propaganda and the human situations in Ukraine. As a matterof fact, Lithuania strongly valued the historical friendship and stra-tegic partnership with Ukraine, having demonstrated that severalyears before. They supported Ukraine’s new candidate status for theEU and making their own plans to rebuild the war-torn nation. Sheconceded that Lithuania was quite small, but they would like to addto the rebuilding efforts.These days, in Lithuania, there were only 56,000 Ukrainians. Mostof them were women and children. Per capita, though, compared toLithuania’s 2.8 million inhabitants, that made it the country withthe third-largest number of Ukrainian migrants. Poland and theCzech Republic were fielding greater number. Most important werepositive reception conditions for migrants. From the beginning ofthe war, Lithuania had amended national budgets and had allocatedhundreds of millions of euros for humanitarian support and recep-tive conditions. That was a national budget as they had had to reactquite quickly. From the very first days when Ukrainians had arrivedin Lithuania, the nation had had to provide humanitarian support– meaning housing, food, medical care, psychological support.They had also opened their social, health services as well as educa-tion systems. Ukrainians could receive all social, health and educa-tional services in the same conditions as Lithuanian citizens. It hadto be said that 40 % of arriving Ukrainians were children. Housingfor families was a true challenge in Lithuania. Only a small amountof social housing had been developed in the country, and that wasnot sufficient for the needs of the refugees. Nonetheless, much likein Poland, people had opened the doors of their own homes andaccommodated refugees from Ukraine. In addition, Ukrainians hadvolunteered in massive numbers. Almost 10,000 volunteers fromFourth Session 105Ukraine were providing humanitarian support and other neededhelp. The spirit of solidarity and empathy was as strong as neverbefore in Lithuanian society. Lithuanians and Ukrainians bothknew the price of independence. Perhaps, Ms Jakštienė suggested,that had been the reason for the solidarity. Recently, Lithuanianshad raised funds to buy combat drones from Turkey for Ukraine,putting together more than five million euros in four days. That wasagain quite a rapid reaction.Children were the special focus of the Lithuanian government’sattention and priority. Any child had children’s rights, she said, towarm and secure housing, to education and other services. Therewere almost 22,000 children from Ukraine in Lithuania of whommore than 1,200 were unaccompanied minors. Usually, some ofthem were simply relocated from the Ukrainian childcare systemfacilities. The last relocation had concerned severely disabled babies.That had been very complicated in terms of logistics to relocatethese disabled children over a long distance for a long period oftime. In April, Lithuania had signed an agreement in the field ofprotection of children with the ministry of social policy of Ukraine.The focus had been placed on the psychological status of the chil-dren. Lithuania was providing psychological assistance as well asmuch-needed educational support. All levels of education werefully open to children from Ukraine, from early childhood up touniversity. Even universities had special programmes for fee-free orunpaid studies. More than 1,800 Ukrainian teachers had arrived inLithuania as well. Presently, the government was passing the teach-ers’ qualification recognition process and would integrate them intothe mainstream Lithuanian education system. Pupils from Ukrainecould enrol in any Lithuanian school, both in the Lithuanian lan-guage but also in Russian at schools in the respective language. TheLithuanian minister of education was doing all that was possible toenable Ukrainian-language classes, so that children could learn thesubject in that language. That was why it was very important toimplore Ukrainian teachers who had arrived in Lithuania to con-tinue teaching in that country. It was expected that Ukrainian chil-dren would require summer camps after the end of the school yearas well as Sunday schools. These were planned to be held in theUkrainian language as well. However, should families choose so,they could also be presented in the mainstream. All children whohad arrived in the country were registered in the Lithuanian educa-tional system. Some of them had chosen to study remotely, accord-ing to the programme offered by the minister of education and sci-ence of Ukraine. There was even a Google initiative, allowing chil-dren to learn remotely via this tool.106 Fourth SessionMoving on to the topic of employment, Ms Jakštienė underlinedits importance. Ukrainians arriving in Lithuania were quite easilyintegrated into the local labour market. According to the latest data,30 % of working-age refugees had already entered the labour mar-ket. That represented almost 12,000 Ukrainians, the majority ofthem women. Six out of ten Ukrainians were in medium-skilledjobs, and one percent was in high-skilled jobs. The government hadpassed the qualification recognition process, qualifying the diplomaand doing so as soon as possible. The majority of Ukrainians wereworking as accountants, marketers, in manufacturing processes,social, healthcare assistance, sanitation specialists, chemical analy-ses, laboratory technicians and the like. The government was tryingto provide the working place using the skillsets people already had.Lithuanian employment ads usually featured the Ukrainian flagnear the announcement, showing that they were looking forward toemploying Ukrainians. Governmental municipal sector employersdid so as well. Even their ministry of social security of labour, theministry of education and that of social health were already employ-ing Ukrainians because the governments understood they neededpeople who could explain in Ukrainian to municipalities and refu-gees what was going on and what they would have to do. The Lith-uanian labour exchange office also employed Ukrainians to provideservices to other Ukrainians. Municipalities were vital partners. Thegovernment was discussing the potential need to relocate peoplewith disabilities. They had already prepared 400 places for disabledpeople from Ukraine. In fact, these were starting to be filled at themoment. Ukrainian soldiers were looking forward to having theirtreatment and rehabilitation in Lithuania. Their minister of healthhad prepared places for rehabilitation and medical treatment forUkrainians and was continuing to do so. They were already receiv-ing soldiers from the war.Ms Jakštienė went on to speak about the important role that NGOswere playing. In the various recent crises from COVID to the war,the Lithuanian government has partnered with NGOs such as theRed Cross Society, Caritas Lithuania, Order of Malta, Save theChildren, Foodbank and others. With the help of these organisa-tions, they were getting a lot of work done. Demographical chal-lenges were also on the mind of government. It was important, butthe speaker pointed out that it was determined by three factors:mortality, fertility and migration. War migration was quite compli-cated and hard to define or to foresee what would happen in thefuture. It had already been mentioned that some families were turn-ing back, in some cases then going back to Lithuania again. Duringthe week, Lithuania would receive about 1,000 migrants fromUkraine, and about half of them would return to their homeland.Fourth Session 107Of course, she added, these were not the same families but ratherthe overall figures. The government provided logistical support,such as buses, for these people to go back to Ukraine.Looking forward, housing could be the answer to more demograph-ical changes in Lithuania. As in the majority of EU countries, Lith-uania also had a low fertility and quite high avoidable mortality. Atthis point, it could not be said how many Ukrainians would be stay-ing in Europe. That would mean a huge projection, and more stud-ies were needed on this point. However, she believed that housing,integration, education and special social support could be measuresto convince Ukrainians to stay in country until the war was over,and then other allocation or relocation measures could be applied.Mr Wallmark thanked her for her speech and moved on to thepresentation by Mr Maciej Duszczyk from the Centre for Migra-tion Research of the University of Warsaw.Speech by Professor Maciej Duszczyk, Centre forMigration Research, University of WarsawProf Duszczyk said it was a great pleasure for him to speak not onlyon behalf of his university but also of Poland and Polish society. Hepicked up on what Commissioner Johansson had finished herspeech on, saying that the war was not yet over. Every day, the Pol-ish train or bus stations saw hundreds of people arriving fromUkraine. It was absolutely necessary to help them, to provide themwith all of the social services. From their migration point of view,the war had not started in 2022 but in 2014 when Crimea had beenannexed by Russia. He presented a slide showing the number ofpermits issued by Polish authorities since 2012. In the past fouryears, the number of Ukrainians had tripled. Poland was in a veryunique situation, Prof Duszczyk explained, because before the out-break of the war, 1.3 million of Ukrainians had lived in Poland. Onthe one hand, it was much easier for them to accommodate thembecause they had something called reunification of families. Polandhad exact data only on border traffic. They did not know how manyof the people coming across were Ukrainians because this numberalso included the students from Pakistan who had left Ukraine’suniversities as well as members of the more than 100 different coun-tries who had stayed in Ukraine before the outbreak of the war.They tried to estimate how many Ukrainians were among these ref-ugees. As per those numbers, there were around 3.5 million peoplewho had fled war from Ukraine to cross the Polish war. Not all ofthem had decided to stay in Poland. Migration researchers had usedthree methodologies to estimate the exit numbers of Ukrainians108 Fourth SessionProfessor Maciej Duszczyk, Centre for Migration Research,University of Warsawwho were still staying in Poland: following the movement of peoplewithin Europe; mobile phone registration as well as how many callswere made every day to Ukraine; the third methodology was some-what problematic as it concerned the usage of water, especially inlarge cities. If taking all of these three methodologies into account,one could say that there were now an additional 1.5 – 1.6 millionUkrainians in Poland. Added to that were the 1.3 million Ukraini-ans who had already lived in Poland before the war, that meant aUkrainian minority of about 3 million people. The professor addedthat they also observed the people going back to Ukraine, but it wasstill very difficult to predict what would happen in Ukraine in thenext few weeks or months. That meant the crucial question of howmany of them would stay in Poland could only begin to be answeredin September 2022 with the start of the new school year, as Com-missioner Johansson had already said earlier.Looking at the registration statistics and the other information,migration researchers had already reduced the estimate of 1.5 – 1.6million Ukrainians down to a more probable 1.2 million people intheir system. 45 % of them were children, in absolute numbers600,000 individuals. 200,000 of them had been enrolled into Pol-ish schools, following the Polish curriculum. Another 400,000 werestill following the Ukrainian curriculum remotely, learning andteaching. The systematic approach of how to manage these chal-lenges in the near future was now of concern. It was not so easy tospeak of this as it had been of the last wave because a lot of differentthings had already been mentioned. Thus, he would focus on onlya few issues. For his side, the pyramid started with education becausethey had to be prepared to enrol a minimum of 600,000 Ukrainianchildren in the Polish education system in the next three months. ItFourth Session 109had been obvious that it would have been quite impossible to do sofor all of them. It was not only impossible from the point of view ofthe Polish system but also because of the children themselves. Theirtrauma from the war must not be increased. It was absolutely nec-essary to take care of the Ukrainian children who had fled from thewar. To explain, he told the story of Kola, a sixteen-year old boywho was exactly the same age as Prof Duszczyk’s son. On 23 Febru-ary, Kola had been in Kyiv and participated in the football school.He had spent four days in the tube station when Kyiv had beenbombarded by the Russians. After that, he had spent three days onthe way to the Polish border which he had crossed to join his fam-ily. Every Sunday, Kola and Prof Duszczyk’s family played football.But if one spoke to these children, one had to understand that theRussian aggression would stay with them for the next months oryears, not just for weeks. For that reason, one had to be very carefulabout what to offer to them. The professor added that Poland wasdoing an absolutely fantastic job, and he was very proud to be Pol-ish. Still, one had to worry about the capacity for real help, aid andassistance. This was crucial, he underlined once more.His side wished to start with education. He conceded that not all ofthe Ukrainian children would be enrolled in Polish schools. Butthey had to prepare the educational system for the next 400,000children. In that, they should avoid the problems from the pan-demic. Teaching and learning remotely was not a very good option.However, they had to find a solution between being enrolled in Pol-ish schools but also to follow the Ukrainian curriculum in theUkrainian schools in Poland. Thus, they had to be prepared to offerplaces for the children. Every child, every day, said good-bye his orher mother, left their apartment to go to school. Even if that was viacomputers. But it was vital to avoid the problems that were verywell known from the pandemic. Housing posed huge problems.Still, 600,000 Ukrainians were staying in Polish families – in housesand apartments. More than 400,000 were sheltering among Ukrain-ian families who had come to Poland before the war. That meantthis was a huge challenge, offering them accommodation. In health-care, they were now taking care of hundreds of wounded soldiers. Inthe autumn, the language problem would be exacerbated since therewould be a need for Ukrainian-speaking doctors to interact withUkrainian children who would fall ill. Labour markets were a prob-lem of competencies, the professor said, adding that the Polish mar-kets had been better prepared to receive men rather than womenfrom the neighbouring country. Nevertheless, they were doing theirbest to find a solution. Prof Duszczyk referred to CommissionerJohansson’s words about fatigue, pointing out that compassionfatigue was a part of psychology. People were tired to help. Thus, a110 Fourth Sessionsystematic approach from the government was needed. It was quiteimpossible to keep all of the responsibilities in the hands of the soci-ety – the grassroots initiatives and NGOs. Of course, they would doall their best to help and aid. But now, they very much needed thissystematic approach, not only from the national governments butalso from the European Commission.The last issue was one that had been raised by German colleagues:They were facing now not only one but several migration crises.There was the second migration crisis at the Polish-Belarusian bor-der. Every day, dozens of people were trying to cross illegally thePolish border, also fleeing war – not a war close to their borders butrather that being waged in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Pakistan andother countries. Every day, these people were trying to reach Europe.That raised the question if Europeans could help everyone. To ProfDuszczyk, the answer was no. He stressed that Europe was not pre-pared to help everyone, but they had to prepare to respond to thisquestion – how they would like to react in the near future. In that,he referred to the Polish MP and head of the Polish delegation, MrWałęsa, had said about the possible influx of refugees from sub-Sa-haran Africa via the North African countries. The issue was how tokeep that part of Africa stable because Europe was not prepared towelcome ten, maybe fifteen million immigrants. However, Europehad to have a solution prepared in the very near future. For scholarslike himself, human rights were not only words but the humanrights that should be at the top of their priorities, their policies andat the top of human beings’ concerns.Co-chair Wallmark thanked the professor and opened the floor forthe questions, remarks and interventions.Mr Maciej Koneczny mentioned three issues regarding refugeesand helping Ukrainians. He agreed with Prof Duszczyk and earliervoices on the fatigue that was the case in countries and in particularfamilies that were helping Ukrainians who had fled the war. Forthat reason, it was necessary to think about institutional solutionsin the future. It was obvious that it was wonderful what people inPoland and other countries were doing at the moment. The reactionwas great and encouraging, but institutional solutions were neededas well as clear rules. First, he wished to tell a story from before thefull scale of the Russian aggression had become clear. As ProfDuszczyk had said, there had been an earlier huge migration fromUkraine, and there had been a strike in a factory producing electricbuses in western Poland. It had been a successful strike. Over there,Polish and Ukrainian workers had held the same regular job con-tracts and were striking together just as they had been workingFourth Session 111together. There had been no tensions among them. But there weresome tensions between Ukrainians working on temporary condi-tions because they were not allowed to strike and could lose theirjobs any second. That showed that in order to avoid tensions in thefuture, clear and equal rules for both refugees and native peoplewere needed – in this case Ukrainians and Poles. Equal workingconditions were needed, and those had to be actively secured. Oth-erwise, they would be doomed to have such tensions. It was thesame with housing and healthcare. They had to have equal condi-tions – no preferential conditions, just equal. Polish, Ukrainian andLithuanian people would live and work together, go to schooltogether, go to the doctor together. Equal conditions were crucial.The second case was, hopefully, after defeating the enemy, Ukraini-ans would have to rebuild their country. For that, Europeans wouldhave to provide help. Here, he mentioned that even before the war,Ukrainians had spent up to 15 % of their budget for their foreigndebt. That was a few times more than they had spent on their mili-tary; that had been 4 % of the budget and 15 % on foreign debt.These were crazy and unacceptable proportions, Mr Konecznyinsisted. Thus, help had to be provided in removing this burdenfrom Ukraine. It was crucial for the European Union and the inter-national community to cancel Ukrainian foreign debt, for examplefor EBC to take over the cost of the Ukrainian foreign debt. Thatway, they would help Ukraine rebuild their nation, and the peoplewould be able to go back to their homes. The third and last topic heraised was avoiding the kind of conditionality in helping Ukrainethat they had seen so many times before, the one that put the prof-its and interests of Western multinational companies over the inter-ests and well-being of the Ukrainian people. That had to be avoided.This could not be done once again, telling Ukrainians that they hadto privatise and de-regulate everything for the profits of multina-tionals. Europe had to give unconditional help that would assistUkrainians rather than multinational corporations. Unfortunately,that was already happening with some programmes from the US.Mr Kacper Płażyński commented that he no longer could seeCommissioner Johansson all of a sudden, only to be informed thatthe Commissioner had left quite a while earlier. He hoped that hisvoice would get to her even though she was not present. Her advicehad been really generous, the politician said sarcastically, to use therecovery funds intended to recover Poland ́s economy from thepandemic through innovation – in particular the energy transfor-mation, considering Poland ́s power came to 60 % from coal plants.He said that all Europe should develop, and Poland might be askingfor more money because this help was now quite insufficient, butthey had heard that they could use the money from their recovery112 Fourth Sessionfund. That was really generous advice, he reiterated with sarcasm.He asked the Lithuanian vice-minister whether she would followthat kind of advice, whether Lithuania would do that. He under-stood that they were working on a backlog of decades refugees andassured Lithuania that they could always count on Poland ́s help,not just military help but every other kind as well. He asked Minis-ter Jakštienė what she thought of this kind of supposed generosity,coming from the Commissioner one hour earlier.Mr Sayed Amin Sayedi of the Youth Forum thanked the BSPC forthe opportunity to speak in front of the decision-makers of the Bal-tic Sea region. He did not have a question but wished to make acomment and address the question of the “not-real” refugees, as thePolish representative had described them. For that, he had to tellthem his own story and experience. Mr Sayedi had fled his homeabout seven years earlier, from Afghanistan. After 45 days of walk-ing through rain, snow and sun, he had finally arrived in Finlandand had applied for asylum there. Unfortunately, after one and ahalf years – although he could speak the language and had inte-grated into the society -, he had received a negative answer, statingthat they had denied his asylum application. Thus, he had had toleave the country and went to Germany. In other words, he had fledfrom one of the most anti-humanitarian countries – Afghanistan –and come to Germany, as a Dublin II case. There, he had gone to achurch as an asylum case for about six months during which timehe had been like a prisoner. He had been forced to stay in the churchbuilding for fear of the police; once he would leave the church, thepolice would have taken him and sent him back Finland and fromthere to Afghanistan. But after six months, he had been able toapply for asylum in Germany. That had not been the end of thestory, though, since he had been rejected by the German authoritiesand had been given toleration papers – meaning that he would betolerated in the country until he could be deported to Afghanistan.For about six years, he had been in Europe without any perspectiveof where to go. This was a very long time period for a young personlike himself. When he had come to Europe, he had been twenty-oneor twenty-two years old. Until he had turned twenty-eight years, hehad not had any perspective in Europe and could not do anything– he had not been permitted to study or to work. The only thingthat had been possible for him had been to leave his home. It wasvery sad that for some of the refugees, their situation was as bad ashe had described while others were treated much better. Secondly,he wished to say that, like the brave people of Ukraine, the Afghanshad also fought for democracy and Western values, hand in handwith the EU, the UN and the USA. At this point, though, theAfghan people who had fought together with EU and US troopsFourth Session 113had been forgotten in Afghanistan, and nobody was helping them.Therefore, he wanted to bring to this platform that those peopleshould not be forgotten and instead receive help.Co-chair Wallmark referred back to the comment and question byMr Płażyński, wondering if the Lithuanian vice-minister, Ms Jakš-tienė, wished to provide an answer.Ms Jakštienė agreed that this had been an important question thather side had raised before, together with the minister and vice-minis-ter of social security and labour of Poland, at the very beginning ofthe Ukraine crisis. That been in particular with regard to disabledpeople as medical services and the long-term care needed for disabledpeople – including babies and children – were quite expensive. Cur-rently, they were planning to – and already implementing – treatmentand rehabilitation procedures for soldiers which also put pressure onthe Lithuanian budget. However, at the beginning, Lithuania hadalready amended their budget to allocate a respective sum which hadnot been used and formed a reserve. Regarding the EU investmentfunds, when they had heard the proposal of using these funds eventhough they were already allocated money. This period was already atthe end of the financial period of 2014 and 2020 which would finishin 2023. The government had already allocated the funds and hadover-contracted the projects, so they did not have any savings. Maybethere were common savings in other EU countries, and they were notrushing that many investments. Furthermore, there was no possibilityof using the current financial period funds. The Lithuanians wereprogramming and had already completed the 2021 – 2027 financialperiod, already including the Ukrainians as a target group in all themeasures. Thus, some social services, some healthcare services andsome infrastructure investments would be provided to Ukrainiansfrom the next period’s funding. Again, like all EU countries, they hadan asylum, migration and integration fund. In Lithuania, it wouldincrease by four times. They had had eleven million euros; now, thathad ballooned to 40 million euros. Still, the sum was quite small anddedicated to helping Ukrainians. There were also other migrantgroups which were in lesser numbers present in Lithuania, so thatUkrainians would benefit most from this endeavour. The governmenthad focused on housing since social housing was not sufficient formigrants, including people from Ukraine. They could not even findanything to rent on the housing market, Ms Jakštienė commented.Education and health systems were also focus issues in seeking to findEU investment funds for this purpose. In the future, they might covertheir budget expenditures with EU funding regarding the eligibilitymeasures. Their strategic plan regarding the finances looked like shehad just described.114 General DebateGeneral DebateProf Jānis Vucāns and Mr Jarosław Wałęsa were co-chairing theGeneral Debate session. Prof Vucāns welcomed everybody to thepresent session which had had to be shortened to half an hour sothat each contribution could only take two minutes. This sessionincluded a format that the BSPC had introduced in 2018. Fouryears earlier in Åland, they had dared to try out a new format intheir Conference, a general debate without restricting the content,allowing everyone to contribute what was particularly close to theirheart. They had further continued this format during the confer-ence in Oslo in 2019. The response to this initiative had been excel-lent. Therefore, it had been decided to continue it here as well. TheBSPC had invented this format to open up opportunities, permit-ting the members to contribute and share their perspectives on theissues that were particularly significant from their points of view orthat of their delegation. That allowed the BSPC to better under-stand the spectrum of opinions and priorities within the Baltic Searegion at the parliamentary level. For that reason, the professorencouraged the attendees from the outset to make use of thisopportunity and to get actively involved in the debate. He handedthe chairmanship over to Mr Wałęsa to guide the next part of thesession.Mr Wałęsa explained that this year, there were many different top-ics that had been touched upon. He was very grateful that they hadbeen able to look at the big picture – obviously, that was the Russianinvasion of Ukraine. However, in the context of the things that werecrucial to the BSPC’s work, things like peaceful and reliable neigh-bourhood policies, democracy and freedom of expression, climatechange or biodiversity – these were the things that had come up intheir discussions many times. This situation, though, put an addi-tional spin on their discussions. He was very grateful that there hadbeen many speakers in the past two days, but this was now the timefor the parliamentarians to answer some questions such as how todeal with the current challenges, whether there were new lessonsthat had been learned or that should be learned because of what hadhappened in Ukraine. He hoped that there could be a summing upin the next contributions or that new issues could be addressed thathad not been tackled before. He opened the floor for the debate.Prof Vucāns noted that – taking into account their decision of theprevious day by which Russia had been officially excluded from theBSPC – now they were in quite a new situation. To his mind, theycould now start to talk about some issues that had been closed forGeneral Debate 115open discussions in the BSPC before. Those were – to some degree– economic questions, energy regards. The day before, there hadbeen a Polish initiative in this debate. In his view, it was obviousthat energy was very important to all of the Baltic Sea region. Theyhad quite a similar climate situation, quite similar possibilities toget energy from nature – wind or solar -, but not to such an extentas was possible in the south of Europe. The BSPC now had theopportunity to speak about common tools of how to store energyproduced through natural resources. Another topic concerned allthe issues related to helping Ukraine. This was quite a new topic,and he believed it would not only be on the agenda for one or twoyears but rather for the long term. Therefore, they might have tointensify this topic, specifically what plans they could build together.This was very important. But there were a lot of those new possibil-ities in this somewhat narrow community to speak about topicswhich previously had been practically impossible. This also con-cerned the topics surrounding the security of the region. Before,there had been wars, and the issue had not been discussed at any oftheir conferences. Now they could talk about security as they under-stood it. Prof Vucāns asked for the next Standing Committee andalso for all of next year that they should think about what these pos-sibilities were and in which new fields they could work.Mr Axel Eriksson of Sweden explained that he was one of twoSwedish youth delegates on the topic of the climate. As such, he wasspeaking on behalf of the Swedish youth, not the parliamentaryyouth forum since they had not had time to discuss this before. Headdressed the security issue as being an issue of the climate and bio-diversity loss as well. If the fundamental roots of many of theseproblems were not tackled, they would not be able to solve themlong-term. Water stress increased the risk of conflict. So did thespread of pathogens due to loss of biodiversity. By not treating theseissues as security matters, they were undermining their chances ofachieving long-term peace. Therefore, he pointed out that it wasvery important to treat the direct consequences of actions, but onealso had to deal with these fundamental roots.Mr Simon Påvals of Åland brought up the question of the empow-erment of the local communities around the Baltic coast. Much ofthe knowledge when talking about biodiversity, the effects of cli-mate change and environmental concerns lay with those affected bythem and who saw them first-hand. There was a difference betweenfirst-hand knowledge and scientific proof. He stressed the fact thatmost of the scientific proof could start off in the qualitative inter-views and contacts with people in the local communities. Therewere no unified solutions to the problem of finding the knowledge116 General Debateand solutions of the loss of biodiversity or other effects of climatechange and industrial fisheries and the like. This combination of thecontact between institutes and with the people living among theeffects was crucial to understand what the region would be facing inthe future. These people were living among nature and from nature;they had seen these effects first-hand during the 1900s. Especiallythe last years, after the big fisheries had been fishing herring in thespring, there had been effects around the whole Baltic Sea thatmight not be direct in terms of loss of fish but were indirect andrather difficult to determine. There might be effects like the stickle-back fish the numbers of which had exploded along the coastsbecause their predator, the herring, had been in decline. Stickle-backs ate pike; they had a very important role in the bays. Thewhole food chain was changing right at this moment, before theirvery eyes, in the Baltic Sea, but there was no scientific proof yetbecause that had not yet reached the institutions. He was glad thatSweden had taken the decision to move out the trawling border totwelve nautical miles. Mr Påvals noted that Finland and Denmarkhad passed an agreement to move their trawling borders inward byfour nautical miles. He hoped that they would accept the same chal-lenge as Sweden had and cancel this contract. That way, their veryendangered spring herring – one of the most important engines inthe food chain in the Baltic Sea – could be protected. Finally, headdressed the hunters in the Baltic Sea and the people that wereusing nature as a food source but were also part of the solution. Heacknowledged that the European work for biodiversity had not fea-tured much of the local people and their perspective as part of thesolution. Instead, they had more often been presented as part of theproblem. He asked everyone to remember that people in the localcommunities were mainly part of the solution concerning biodiver-sity and the effects on the environment in the Baltic Sea.Chairman Wałęsa commented that this topic was very close to hisheart. He used to be vice-chair of the fisheries committee of theEuropean Parliament, and he knew very well about the commercialtrawling in the Baltic Sea. His suggestion would be to go back to theagreement for the Baltic Sea of the 1970s which had limited thesizes of the ships that could operate. He had mentioned that a num-ber of times in his work but unfortunately, his proposal had landedon deaf ears. Definitely, though, it was necessary to go back to saidagreement because the Baltic Sea was dying, and it was necessary todo everything possible to save it.Ms Inese Voika from Latvia continued the intervention from thatmorning when they had heard and discussed support for Ukraineand the refugees. She hoped that they would see here at the Confer-General Debate 117ence but also in the representatives’ respective parliaments thatUkraine would not only be assisted through helping the refugees,stopping the war but also in the post-war construction – both phys-ically but also the democratic country that Ukraine had been so vig-orously although not always with great progress and success. Yet ithad been building towards a good status over the past decade. Thesequestions would come up once the war was over, and Ukrainewould have won. The input of the European nations would be justas important then. Another aspect of the BSPC’s work on restoringand helping the democracy around the Baltic Sea and in their neigh-bourhood was the way they were approaching this. That not onlyconcerned Ukraine, but the issue of democracy also extended toBelarus and, not least, Russia. Both these countries were currentlyseen to be on one side of the war, due to the people presently inpower there. Ms Voika insisted that the Belarusian democraticopposition – most of whom were in exile – was a group of peoplethat required support from the BSPC parliaments, governmentsand people because it was not known how long that work wouldtake. Nor was it known how long the exiles would need support tokeep their ideas and readiness for a democratic Belarus alive. Latviahad just established a group to support the Belarusian opposition –the Belarusian Democratic Movement – in its parliament. MsVoika knew that there was such a group in the parliament of Lith-uania as well, and something similar had also been established inSweden. She stressed her encouragement to all other parliaments tolook into this matter. They should provide support to the growingdemocracy. She knew what she was talking about because her peo-ple in the Baltic States had first received support from the Nordiccountries and others throughout the fifty years of occupation. Somepeople in governments and the population had believed that thesecountries could one day be independent and democratic. Once thathad happened, the EU had also helped the Baltic States to buildthat de facto. Ms Voika underlined that democracy did not justconsist of the election system but also the space and the way of dis-cussing and living it. That, she underlined, was what the attendeeswere practicing here at this Baltic Sea Conference, and it was some-thing that was part of their obligations to the Belarusian democraticmovement. Working with Ukrainians and Belarusians, one shouldnot forget that there were movements in Russia – they were smalland visible, and many leaders of these movements were in prison atthis time. Nevertheless, there were people who believed in demo-cratic governance and democratic societies in Russia. The daybefore, she and others had been at a rally supporting Ukraine, andshe had said this there as well. She had talked about Ukraine, Bela-rus and Russia and democratic movements. There were young Rus-sians present who had come up to her and told her, “Thank you.118 General DebateThank you for not forgetting us. We are here. We want Putin to goaway as much as you do, and we are so very ready to work withyou.” Ms Voika called on the parliamentarians to keep their focusin their everyday work and at this Conference on democratic devel-opments around the Baltic Sea and in their neighbourhood.Ms Iveta Benhena-Bēkena, a youth representative from Latvia aswell, began by quoting, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” This was aLatin proverb that was translated as, ”If you want peace, prepare forwar.” The invasion of Russia in Ukraine could also be translated asthe result of poor decisions made earlier. Now it was necessary toface their consequences and deal with them. That was why she askedthe politicians to act from their hearts and towards making peacereality, where their shared values were understood and realised ineveryday life. She knew that would be no joyride and tough, yet shewas certain that the sacrifices which would have to be made wouldbe worth the effort in order to sustain the values they shared asdemocracies. The Conference and its participants had shown thatthey could contribute for humanity and human rights as a whole.She called on everyone to do better than ever before. Ms Benhe-na-Bēkena thanked the politicians for their actions and challengedthem to do even better.Mr Kacper Płażyński wished to add something that had notappeared during their discussions and was very much of impor-tance. Moreover, it had not been included in the Conference reso-lution. He was asking himself why he had not proposed that issue.In particular, he was thinking about reparations. Reparations forUkraine, from Russia. All of them wanted peace, but they wanted apeace according to international law – a peace restoring nationalsovereignty and territorial integrity. They were all fighting for Rus-sia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine. That might only happenyears in the future, and it was likely a long-distance goal. He under-lined that they also had to talk about reparations in their interna-tional disputes. If they were to force Ukrainians to pretendeverything was just fine after Russian forces had withdrawn andbusiness as usual with the Russians should resume, he saw that asvery wrong thinking. That would create a precedence for othercountries on this continent to completely destroy the economics ofother countries. Once they had withdrawn their forces back intotheir homeland, that would then be just fine. He stressed that thisshould not be possible. Reparations would be necessary. He notedthat not so many leaders of European countries were saying thatreparations were also one of the pillars after which they could comeback to business as usual with Russia. Mr Płażyński added a com-ment to the speaker from Latvia before him, agreeing with her 100General Debate 119%, but it had to be remembered that it was even worse than she hadsaid. They had to be ready to make the sacrifice, but if they wouldnot make that sacrifice at this point, it would grow larger and larger;the costs would be much greater in the future if they did not paytoday.Chairman Wałęsa pointed out that Mr Płażyński had made animportant point. Putin’s strategy at this point was to destroy Ukraineso much that it would become a failed country. Europeans had todo everything in their power to make sure that after the war, Russiawould pay for its crimes.Mr Ola Elvestuen from Norway noted that this was his first BSPCmeeting, but he believed they were sending a strong message ofunity. That applied in particular to their support for Ukraine againstthe aggression from Russia. At the same time, it had to be acknowl-edged that the war in Ukraine at this point was not going well. Itwas Russian forces that were moving forward, and the West had toincrease its support. They had to increase their support with heavyweapons, on ammunition and the whole military support. Theattendees had to go back to their parliaments and send that messageof urgency. Furthermore, sanctions had to be strengthened as wellas the broader support for refugees and others. Mr Elvestuenbelieved it should also be acknowledged that they were in a muchlarger international struggle for freedom and democracy. They werefacing a food crisis across the globe. Moreover, there were authori-tarian regimes – Russia, China and others – that were challengingfreedom and democracy all over the world. As democracies, theyneeded to be much more coordinated. They were showing theirunity at this Conference, but there had to be far more coordinationat the international level. As for the youth representative from Swe-den, he said that the nature and climate crisis had to be faced. Ofcourse, the use of fossil fuels had to be stopped. Biodiversity had tobe safeguarded. Pollution had to be stopped. All of that had to bedone at the same time as defending and expanding freedom anddemocracy. Those topics were totally interlinked, Mr Elvestuenunderscored. They would not reach their goals to work against thesecrises in climate and nature if they did not have a strong enoughforce of democracy and freedom that could lead the way on thosesolutions. Therefore, they had to be implemented at the same time.Mr Hans Wallmark of Sweden believed he had attended eight orten different BSPC Conferences over the years. He had to admitthat this was the first time when it was quite easy to breathe. It wasnot only because of the air in Stockholm but that they were withoutsome of the delegations. Those delegations had previously made the120 General Debaterest hesitant and not speak the truth – not speaking about somesubjects at all. Therefore, when Prof Vucāns had noted this veryobvious fact that they now had the opportunity to form their ownBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference without any restraints, it was agreat opportunity. He called on his colleagues to use this year fromthis Conference to the next one to go back to the drawing boardand really think about what was the challenge, what were the prob-lems and what they could achieve together around the Baltic Sea.He believed that the old challenges and problems remained – theones that had been raised before, such as the climate change, theBaltic Sea water, the sea-dumped ammunitions as mentioned by theforeign minister from Germany. These were the old problems, butnow they also had new challenges: the security environment, thethreat from Russia towards the West and also the opportunitieswhich lay in the fact that Sweden and Finland were now applyingfor NATO membership. So, they now had great opportunities to goto that drawing board and really try to find out what they – the free,independent countries and regions of the Baltic Sea region – reallywanted to do together when they did not have those restraints frombefore. Therefore, as also the former minister from Sweden, Mr JanEliasson, had mentioned, they had now the time to shape theirown Hanseatic League for all time. They were now coming togetherin the Baltic Sea region.Ms Hanna Katrín Friðriksson of Iceland thanked her colleagues forthe discussions here and strongly supported every remark on theimportant work that lay ahead in supporting Ukraine – while notforgetting the BSPC’s responsibilities regarding climate issues. As along-time journalist and now politician, she also had to mentionthe importance of a free and independent press in this whole situa-tion that they were facing. Just as important was them fightingagainst the use of strategic propaganda, to combat fake news andfind what other ways there were to continue to support a free andindependent press. The latter was the lifeline to democracy anddemocratic values. She thanked the Conference for the session ofthe previous day about the free press and the participants. In par-ticular, Ms Friðriksson mentioned the comment she believed MsValentyna Shapovalova had made. The researcher had said thatone of the ways to fight the current war against the free press wouldbe to support the translation of international news into Russian, tohelp the Russian people understand what was really going on. Thatwould be one way, and Ms Friðriksson urged everyone to considerthat.Mr Wille Valve from Åland wished to speak on the European banon seal products. That, to his understanding, had been introducedGeneral Debate 121for reasons of animal welfare. On the ground, in the local commu-nities, for people living along the coastlines and also for local fisher-men, this ban created a real awkward situation in everyday life. Thereason was that one was allowed to hunt seals in the Baltic Sea forpractical reasons. This was because the seal population was verylarge and destroying fish stocks and fisheries. Seals were not huntedwith sticks, he pointed out, but with rifles, also reducing unneces-sary suffering. Legally, one was allowed to hunt seals, but one wasnot allowed to do anything useful with the hunted seal, such asmaking some seal oil or a souvenir from the small quantity ofhunted seals. Instead, the law required the hunter to bury the sealwhich made perfect sense if there was soil. But if there were onlyrocks everywhere and nowhere to bury, that created a both practicaland legal problem. This was in the broader sense not a good situa-tion because it eroded faith in legislation which always had to beguided by common sense. Mr Valve noted that there were indeedperfectly good arguments for strongly limiting the commercial saleof seal products. That was because there was the fear that this wouldcreate a larger market for seal products. However, he did believethere should be a strictly defined exception allowing artisanal, localuse of seal products. Lastly, this might seem a very small question,he conceded, but it had a huge impact on the people living alongthe coast and also on the legitimacy of other legislation as such.Chairman Wałęsa concluded the general debate session of the Con-ference.122 Closing SessionCLOSING SESSIONBSPC President Pyry Niemi opened the closing session of the 31stBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. First up would be the reportsof the BSPC Rapporteurs. Ms Beate Schlupp was the BSPCobserver at HELCOM and wished to say something about theevents of the preceding year.Report by Ms Beate Schlupp,BSPC Observer at HELCOMMs Schlupp said that the unprovoked and unjustifiable aggressionof the Russian Federation against Ukraine had not only violated thefundamental principles of international law and defied the values oftheir 30-year-long cooperation in the Baltic Sea region but had alsodisrupted the work of multiple regional cooperation institutionsand forums. This institutional network had taken decades to buildand had provided the political and legal field for joint practicalefforts to address common challenges and problems. As an inter-governmental organisation and a regional sea convention com-prised of Baltic Sea coastal states, HELCOM counted among thoseinstitutions that had been deeply affected by the war of aggressionwaged by one of its contracting parties in Europe on the very bor-der of the European Union. In reaction to the war in Ukraine, the43rd meeting of the Helsinki Commission – scheduled for 22March 2022 – had been postponed, and all meetings of Helsinkibody groups and projects with Russian involvement had been sus-pended through 30 June 2022. However, this horrible war had notput other global and regional problems, such as the pandemic, theclimate and energy crisis, on hold. If anything, it had expedited theurgent need for solidarity and cooperation in defence of the sharedClosing Session 123principles and goals. She therefore thanked Dr Lilian Busse foraccepting the invitation the BSPC’s 31st Baltic Sea ParliamentaryConference and providing an update on HELCOM’s work in thesetroubling and turbulent times. It was extremely important to con-tinue their joint efforts towards the common goal of a safer andmore sustainable Baltic Sea.On this day, the Conference had consensually agreed on the revisedStatutes and Rules of Procedure of the BSPC. They had now explic-itly outlined the fundamentals, principles, mission and objectives oftheir parliamentary cooperation which had been self-explanatory, aseveryone had presumably assumed. Accordingly, the BSPC’s mainaim and focus was contributing to security, prosperity and a soundand sustainable status of the environment in the Baltic Sea region.Indeed, joint efforts to support sustainable ecological developmentin the region had traditionally stood high on the agenda of theregional parliamentary forum. Their common commitment to ahealthy and thriving Baltic Sea had prompted the BSPC’s decisionto apply for observer status at HELCOM which the Baltic Sea Par-liamentary Conference had attained exactly 20 years before, in 2002.Since then, the BSPC and HELCOM had been closely workingtogether, guided by this common vision. In this regard, she extendedher gratitude to the outgoing HELCOM German chairmanship forits engaged work over the past two years. It had indeed been a diffi-cult time, dominated by unprecedented crises and disruptions.Ms Beate Schlupp, BSPC Observer at HELCOMIt was therefore all the more noteworthy, Ms Schlupp underlined, thatdespite the pandemic-related restrictions on operational activities, HEL-COM had managed to finalise the ambitious and comprehensive updateof the Baltic Sea Action Plan which had been adopted at the HELCOM124 Closing SessionMinisterial Meeting in Lübeck on 20 October 2021. The road towardsthe updated BSAP which had started in 2018 had been long and notalways smooth. In the end, the contracting parties had consensuallyagreed on an extensive list of long-term targets and concrete measures toachieve a good environmental status of the Baltic Sea by 2030. Theupdated plan included 199 measures to protect biodiversity, combateutrophication and pollution and regulate maritime activities such as fish-ing, underwater noise and seabed disturbance. Cross-cutting issues suchas monitoring, maritime spatial planning, social-economic analyses and,last but not least, climate change were included as horizontal topics tosupport the implementation of related measures. The plan was alignedwith such global frameworks as the UN Sustainable Development Goals,the Convention on Biological Diversity as well as the EU Marine StrategyFramework Directive and would serve to help contracting parties inachieving the international environmental commitments. The adoptionof the updated BSAP together with a comprehensive package of associ-ated action documents at the highest decision-making level in HELCOMshould send a strong signal for stepping up in the area of marine environ-mental protection, not only at the regional but also at the global level.Ms Schlupp noted that other regional sea conventions closely fol-lowed and drew inspiration from HELCOM’s dedicated sci-ence-based work. Thus, the HELCOM Regional Action Plan OnMarine Litter and the Baltic Sea Nutrient Recycling Strategy repre-sented unique and innovative tools for environmental protection inthe Baltic Sea region. This was a clear political success, yet MsSchlupp cautioned that the true success of the BSPC would dependon a national implementation of the agreed measures and actions.The BSPC had closely followed the BSAP update process andaddressed it in numerous resolutions. This year’s resolution alsoincluded a dedicated section on mitigation of climate change andpreserving biodiversity in the Baltic Sea region. Now that the updateprocess had been finalised and the new strategic plan had beenadopted, parliamentarians were responsible for considering theadopted measures and targets in their decision making and forpushing their governments towards their timely implementation.Finally, Ms Schlupp wished the upcoming Latvian HELCOMchairmanship much success in the next two years and was lookingforward to the presidency’s priorities as well as the further coopera-tion between the BSPC and HELCOM.Mr Niemi thanked Ms Schlupp for an interesting report andmoved on to Mr Philipp da Cunha, also from the parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern. He was filling the position of MrJochen Schulte as Co-Rapporteur on Integrated Maritime Policywith Mr Jörgen Pettersson.Closing Session 125Report by Mr Philipp da Cunha, Co-Rapporteur onIntegrated Maritime PolicyMr da Cunha said he was pleased to have been nominated as Rap-porteur for Integrated Maritime Policy. Two months before, he hadtaken over this task from Mr Schulte for which reason he unfortu-nately could not yet provide a written report. Instead, he would givean overview in this presentation of how he would organise the text.First, he thanked his colleague, Mr Jörgen Pettersson from Åland,for his contributions and commitment to Integrated Maritime Pol-icy. It was great to have him onboard. Mr da Cunha had just expe-rienced that at the working group meeting in the previous month.In the report, he was planning to describe the impact of the war andthe pandemic-related crises on the developments in the area of theIntegrated Maritime Policy. For example, there had been significantdisruptions to cruise tourism and the supply chain. The impact ofthe COVID-19 pandemic on cruise tourism was still not fully pre-dictable at this point. The cruise industry which had been expectedto recover after COVID-19 had not done so in early 2022. Beforethe pandemic had erupted, Europe had had the second-largestcruise market after North America, both as the source of the passen-gers and as a destination for cruise journeys. Moreover, 95 % of allcruise ships worldwide had been built in the European Union ship-yards. At this time, his federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommernwas suffering considerably from this decline. As a result, the cruisesector might not return to its pre-crisis level of success.Mr Philipp da Cunha, Co-Rapporteur on Integrated Maritime PolicyAccording to the German shipowners’ association, supply chainswere expected to return to normal only after the pandemic. But thatwould probably not be the case. The war was having a severe impact126 Closing Sessionon this aspect as was China whose zero-COVID policy was contin-uing to cause numerous disruptions. If one looked at what was pres-ently going on at sea, there was one thing above all: maritime trafficjams. Approximately 11 % of the cargo shipping worldwide was notreaching the customer. Freighters with containers and bulk cargowere stuck in traffic jams outside the ports so that businesses andconsumers would have to adjust to missing or delayed shipmentsfor some time to come. There were significant restrictions at indi-vidual ports that changed weekly, sometimes even daily, so thatthere was no certainty in many parts of the world that, for example,a crew change could be made. Ports also continued to be severelyaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, shipping compa-nies were jamming ships in front of the ports because, for instance,crew people were ill or going on strike to push through sustainablewage increases. In many places, hinterland traffic had also largelycollapsed or was extremely delayed because truck drivers were to agreat degree absent as well. As a result of the Russian war of aggres-sion against Ukraine, goods sent in shipments to and from Russiawere declining sharply, and transport routes from Eastern Europewere changing. Supply chains were partially interrupted. However,more volumes were reaching the ports while supply chains weretransforming. This did not only concern grain imports fromUkraine but also from Russia.Another set of issues that Mr da Cunha planned to focus on in thisreport were the legal developments around the green and digitaltransformation of the EU. For example, there was the blue economy,the RePower EU Action Plan and emission control. Because of thehigh concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, an EUClimate Emergency had been declared. The EU Climate Law hadlegally paved the way towards climate neutrality for the EU by 2050,providing for reductions in greenhouse gases up to 55 % comparedto 1990. A key factor was the parallel occurrence of the energy sup-ply crisis, the energy price crisis and the climate crisis. In the EU Fitfor 55 package, the 800 billion euros in the next generation stimulusprogramme was designed to support the industries’ plan for thegreen and digital transformation. Secure jobs, ocean clean-up as wellas energy and raw material extraction were the focus of Mr daCunha’s new direction in the maritime sector. Parts of the blue armof the environmental and digital transformation was bio-economics.An example was the sustainable economic use of the biologicalsources of the seas and the waters. The EU’s Horizon Research pro-gramme targeted so-called European missions and aimed to presentsolutions by 2030 for, among other things, revitalising the oceanwaters and adapting to climate change. In the end, economic growthis to be decoupled from resource use. But now they were living at aClosing Session 127time of extreme military and energy uncertainty. Food market expec-tations had been changed dramatically, affecting prices for all com-modities. Through the diversification of energy sources, importswere already reducing dependence on Russian gas. The commonEuropean approach to more affordable, secure and sustainableenergy was on the agenda through the interaction of energy saving,the diversification of the energy supply and the accelerated develop-ment of renewable energy. The Ukraine war had promoted theannouncement of an increase in the German defence budget througha special 100-billion-euro fund. Finland and Sweden were seeking tojoin NATO. The pressing sustainable development goals 2030 hadbeen on the agenda in the various forums across the Baltic Sea regionfor some time. Now, higher defence spending and spending toreduce social hardships directly caused by the war in Baltic Sea coun-tries had become a major political task. There was a lot to look for-ward to. He asked the attendees to send in suggestions regardingadditional topics to include in his report.President Niemi thanked Mr da Cunha for an interesting report.Before handing over the gavel to the next BSPC president, MrNiemi noted that they still had to adopt the revised resolution ofthe 31st annual Conference. He reminded everyone that they couldonly take decisions by unanimous consent. There was one adminis-trative matter that had to be taken care of first. The Conference wasinvited to agree to another amendment of the Statutes and Rules ofProcedure adopted the day before. The Standing Committee hadagreed on a new version of paragraph 10. As they had not been ableto do this on Sunday due to time constraints given the volume ofdecisions to be made this year, they had agreed on this change dur-ing the Conference. The Standing Committee considered this nec-essary to be adopted by this Conference in connection with theother amendments to the Rules of Procedure. The new text of par-agraph 10 had been distributed. He asked for a show of hands fromthose who were in favour of the change and then for those againstand abstaining.The Conference adopted the amendment of paragraph10 to the Rules of Procedure of the BSPC.Mr Niemi turned to the resolution of the 31st Baltic Sea Parliamen-tary Conference. He thanked all delegations for their hard work,especially the members of the Drafting Committee. As always, ithad not been an easy feat to come to an agreement, but in the end,it had been worth it. Everyone had been given a copy of the resolu-tion of the 31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. It had foundunanimous agreement by the members of the Drafting Committee,128 Closing Sessionand he reminded everyone that just like every year, the resolutionhad to find unanimous agreement by every BSPC member. Heasked the Conference if all the members could agree to the resolu-tion of the 31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. There was oneabstention.The Conference adopted the Resolution of the31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.Departing BSPC President Niemi thanked everyone for their workduring this Conference as well as during this past year. The resolu-tion of the 31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference had now beenadopted. He went on to say it had been a true honour for him tohave been BSPC President, and he was now looking forward to fol-lowing the good BSPC tradition of passing the baton over to theincoming BSPC President, their colleague Johannes Schraps fromGermany.He did so in handing over the baton.After that, Mr Niemi said that the incoming BSPC PresidentSchraps would address the Conference on the priorities of the Ger-man Bundestag presidency.Concluding Speech by New BSPC PresidentMr Johannes Schraps, German BundestagMr Schraps said it was an honour to speak to the Conferenceattendees as their new President of the BSPC. To start off, he oncemore thanked his predecessor Pyry Niemi for his outstanding workduring the last 2 years as well as Mr Bodo Bahr, the BSPC Secre-tary General, who was literally working day and night to preparethe BSPC’s meetings and their annual conference. He furthermorevoiced his gratitude to the staff, to the secretary level, as they weretruly part of the BSPC secretariat, because it was the close and reli-able cooperation between the BSPC Secretary General and the sec-retariats in our member parliaments and organisations that madesure that the work as the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference waspossible.He went on to note that these were difficult times to live in. Thus,it was even more important to send signals of togetherness insteadof signals of division or fragmentation, as the Conference had heardthe day before from Jan Eliasson. With the unanimous adoption ofa far-reaching resolution based on ever trustful and very productivenegotiations, with the 31st Annual Conference, the BSPC had sentClosing Session 129Mr Niemi and Mr Schrapssuch a strong signal. As the German Bundestag, the delegation wastaking over the presidency during times of great change andupheaval. The world had been taken aback by the full-scale militaryattack and war of aggression carried out by the Russian Federationagainst the sovereignty, independence and against the people ofUkraine. This war of aggression was a threat to democratic values asa whole, the new president stressed. With the threats to democraticsecurity and in addition to that, with the COVID-19 pandemic butalso with the rapidly ongoing climate change, the people of the Bal-tic Sea region were facing tremendous challenges in the comingyears. Close cooperation, partnership and reliability were even moreimportant in these times. “Strengthening democratic resilience andpromoting peace” would therefore be the headline of the Bundestagpresidency in light of the circumstances.During the presidency of the German Bundestag 2022-2023, theywould focus on boosting democratic resilience against adverse influ-ences in order to be able to cope better and together with currentchallenges and to withstand future threats. President Schrapsexplained that his side considered it vital to promote good neigh-bourliness, peaceful coexistence and respecting the sovereign integ-rity and equality of all states. Drawing on the main theme of theSwedish presidency 2020-2022 and the adopted resolution of thisday, they also endeavoured to utilise synergy effects with the presi-dency of the German government in the CBSS – especially in thesupport and strengthening of democratic institutions. The pan-demic, cyber attacks and the threats by disinformation campaigns,fake news - as had been intensively discussed during the Conference– had exposed the vulnerability of democratic societies to conspir-acy theories. He underlined that in order for democracies to prevail,130 Closing Sessionit was imperative to make democratic processes more transparent,and it was vital to encourage a strong and diverse civil society. Whileembracing the benefits of digitalisation, fake news and hate speechhad to be combated. Not just the young generation needed to beguided and taught the appropriate way to use social media: As hadagain been learned from the previous day’s presentations, it was achallenge for the whole democratic society.At the same time – underlined by the strong and impressive wordsof the delegates of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum – theclimate crisis remained one of the greatest challenges of this time. Inview of the final year of the BSPC’s current Working Group on Bio-diversity and Climate Change, the German Bundestag put the pro-tection and preservation of the marine environment and strength-ening the resilience of maritime ecosystems at the forefront of theirpresidency. This included cooperation in the energy sector, windenergy and intensifying the efforts to monitor and treat the problemof sea-dumped munitions. Having in mind the once more excellentcontributions of the Baltic Sea Youth Forum, there would hopefullybe another youth forum in the margins of the 32nd BSPC AnnualConference in Berlin in the following year.On the Conference’s first day here in the former Second Chamberof the Riksdag, departing BSPC President Niemi had told MrSchraps about the famous former Swedish prime minister OlofPalme whose seat had been right here on the left side of the plenary.At a time when Finland and Sweden were applying together tobecome NATO members, it had come to his mind that he hadrecently read Olof Palme’s biography, particularly concerning thetough discussions in Sweden about the nation’s position of neutral-ity when Mr Palme had been in office. For that reason, he con-cluded his speech with two quotations. The first was a famous sen-tence said by a close friend of Olof Palme, the former German chan-cellor Willy Brandt: He had stated that every era had its ownanswers. And the other quote was from Palme himself, saying thatPolitics meant wanting something. Both really suited the BSPCvery well. They tried to find answers for the solutions that theyneeded, and they wanted something – finding solutions together.Having said that, President Schraps explained that the delegation ofthe German Bundestag was looking forward to hosting the mem-bers of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in the coming yearfrom 27 to 29 August in Berlin.Vice-President Niemi thanked the president for an excellent speechand wished him good luck in the upcoming year. At the very end ofthe Conference, he thanked everyone who had participated in theClosing Session 131organisation of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. First of all,he voiced his gratitude to all the parliamentarians, experts, govern-ment representatives and guests for their active involvement. Healso thanked the staff of the Swedish parliament for their supportand assistance in efficiently organising this Conference, particularly– as had already been said the previous evening – Ms Johanna Ing-varsson, Mr Dan Alvarsson and the rest of the Riksdag interna-tional office. Mr Niemi went on to thank the Secretary General forhis valuable output and input. Finally, he gave a special thank youto the interpreters for their amazing job that had greatly simplifiedthe work of the past couple of days.Mr Niemi declared the 31st Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conferenceclosed.Pre-Session on administrative mattersBSPC President Pyry Niemi welcomed the attendees to a specialsession devoted to approving the decisions made in the aftermath ofthe Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. In light ofthe unwarranted Russian aggression, the BSPC Standing Commit-tee had decided to suspend the memberships of the Russian parlia-ments in the BSPC and to change the BSPC Rules of Procedure toreflect the historical importance of the moment and to allow for thesuspension or expulsion of members violating the fundamentalprinciples of the BSPC. President Niemi noted that the ongoingefforts to track a new course for the BSPC without Russia had pro-ceeded at a fast pace. That also concerned that the Russian parlia-ments had withdrawn from the BSPC. Therefore, the Conferenceapproved the suspension of the Russian parliaments from the BSPC.The amendments to the Rules of Procedure mainly concern funda-mental additions. These are also expressed in the new name ‘Stat-utes and Rules of Procedure’. These include the fundamentals andcore principles to which the BSPC has unanimously committeditself in a series of resolutions as defined foundations of its coopera-tion. Furthermore, now the procedure is regulated if a MemberState blatantly violates the foundations and core principles by theflagrant violation of the rules of international law. Further regula-tions result from the suspension and withdrawal of the Russian par-liaments. Additionally, administrative adjustments to the decisionson the BSPC strategies and work programmes have been made onthis occasion.132 Closing SessionBSPC Vice-President Johannes Schraps underlined that it was cru-cial for the BSPC to express the reasons behind their decisions tothe public in a declaration.BSPC Secretary-General Bodo Bahr read out a draft declaration toexplain the changes and the historical context in which the amend-ments were made.Prof Jānis Vucāns and Ms Bryndís Haraldsdottír contributed tothe debate.The Conference adopted the new Statutes and Rules of Proce-dure which were supplemented the next day by an adaptation of afurther rule on administrative matters and agreed to publish thementioned declaration in conjunction with the publication of thenew Statutes and Rules of Procedure.List of Participants 133List of ParticipantsKingdom of Sweden1. Dr Andreas Norlén, Speaker of the Riksdag2. Ann Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs, SwedenMember Parliaments and ParliamentaryOrganizationsÅland Parliament3. Wille Valve, Member of the Åland Parliament4. Liz Mattsson, Member of the Åland Parliament5. Simon Påvals, Member of the Åland Parliament6. Sten Eriksson, Secretary of the Delegation of the ÅlandParliamentBaltic Assembly7. Jānis Vucāns, President of the Baltic Assembly, Latvia8. Andrius Kupčinskas, Vice President of the Baltic Assembly,Lithuania9. Aadu Must, Vice President of the Baltic Assembly, Estonia10. Sven Sester, Member of the Presidium of the Baltic Assembly,Estonia11. Inese Voika, Member of the Presidium of the Baltic Assembly,Latvia12. Agnija Antanoviča, Secretary General, Baltic AssemblySecretariat13. Merilin Reepalu, Secretary of the Estonian delegation to theBaltic Assembly, EstoniaBremen14. Sülmez Dogan, Vice President of the State Parliament ofBremen15. Antje Grotheer, Vice President of the State Parliament ofBremen134 List of ParticipantsDenmark16. Christian Juhl, Member of Parliament of Denmark17. Morten Schiøttz, Secretary of the DelegationEuropean Parliament18. Stasys Jakeliūnas, Member of the European Parliament19. Adam Isaacs, Secretary of the Delegation of the EuropeanParliamentFinland20. Sakari Puisto, Member of the Parliament of Finland21. Kai Mykkänen, Member of the Parliament of Finland22. Mika Laaksonen, Secretary of the Delegation of theParliament of FinlandGermany23. Johannes Schraps, Vice President of the BSPC, Member of theGerman Bundestag24. Claudia Müller, Member of the German Bundestag25. Gereon Bollmann, Member of the German Bundestag26. Petra Nicolaisen, Member of the German Bundestag27. Katalin Zádor, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestag28. Dr Birgit Von Pflug, Secretary of the Delegation of theGerman Bundestag29. A na-Sofia May, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestag30. P ia-Sophie Brandenburg, Secretary of the Delegation of theGerman Bundestag31. Malte Klüver, Secretary of the Delegation of the GermanBundestagHamburg32. Carola Veit, President of the State Parliament of Hamburg33. Danial Ilkhanipour, Member of the State Parliament ofHamburg34. Alske Freter, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg35. David Erkalp, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg36. Metin Kaya, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg37. Krzysztof Walczak, Member of the State Parliament of Hamburg38. Johannes Düwel, Director of the State Parliament of Hamburg39. Friederike Lünzmann, Secretary of the Delegation of the StateParliament of HamburgList of Participants 135Iceland40. Bryndís Haraldsdóttir, Member of the Parliament of Iceland41. Helgi Thorsteinsson, Secretary of the Delegation ofParliament of IcelandLatvia42. Iveta Benhena-Bēkena, Member of the Parliament of Latvia43. Ingrīda Sticenko, Secretary of the Delegation of theParliament of LatviaLithuania44. Orinta Leiputė, Member of the Parliament, Lithuania45. Renata Godfrey, Adviser of the International Relations Unit,Office of the Seimas, LithuaniaMecklenburg-Vorpommern46. Beate Schlupp, Vice President of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern47. P hilipp da Cunha, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern48. Christian Albrecht, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern49. Sabine Enseleit, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern50. Katy Hoffmeister, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern51. Nikolaus Kramer, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern52. Thomas Krüger, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern53. Anne Shepley, Member of the State Parliament ofMecklenburg-Vorpommern54. Georg Strätker, Secretary to the Delegation of the StateParliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern55. Evgeniya Bakalova, Secretary to the Delegation of the StateParliament of Mecklenburg-VorpommernNordic Council56. Jorodd Asphjell, Member of the Parliament of Norway and theNordic Council136 List of Participants57. Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, Member of the Parliament ofIceland and the Nordic Council58. Arne Fogt Bergby, International Senior Adviser of the NordicCouncilNorway59. Himanshu Gulati, Member of the Norwegian Parliament60. Ola Elvestuen, Member of the Norwegian Parliament61. Kathy Lie, Member of the Norwegian Parliament62. Truls Vasvik, Member of the Norwegian Parliament63. Lene Westgaard-Halle, Member of the Norwegian Parliament64. Thomas Fraser, Secretary of the Delegation of the NorwegianParliamentPoland65. Jarosław Wałęsa, Member of the Sejm Parliament of Poland66. Maciej Koneczny, Member of the Sejm of the Republic ofPoland67. Jerzy Materna, Member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland68. Grzegorz Matusiak, Member of the Sejm of the Republic ofPoland69. Kacper Płażyński, Member of the Sejm Parliament of Poland70. Rafał Ślusarz, Member of the Senate of the Republic of Poland71. Piotr Koperski, Secretary of the Delegation of the Sejm of theRepublic of PolandSchleswig-Holstein72. Kai Dolgner, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein73. Peter Lehnert, Member of the State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein74. Christopher Vogt, Member of the State Parliament ofSchleswig-Holstein75. E ka von Kalben, Member of the State Parliament ofSchleswig-Holstein76. Jette Waldinger-Thiering, Member of the State Parliament ofSchleswig-Holstein77. Mareike Watolla, Secretary of the Delegation of the StateParliament of Schleswig-HolsteinList of Participants 137Sweden78. Pyry Niemi, President of the BSPC, Member of the SwedishParliament79. Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, Member of the Swedish Parliament80. Janine Alm Ericsson, Member of the Swedish Parliament81. Hans Wallmark, Member of the Swedish Parliament82. Aron Emilsson, Member of the Swedish Parliament83. Ingvar Mattsson, Secretary General of the Swedish Parliament84. A nna-Karin Hedström, Head of the InternationalDepartment85. Johanna Ingvarsson, Secretary of the Delegation of theSwedish Parliament86. Dan Alvarsson, Secretary of the Delegation of the SwedishParliament87. Melinda Nilsson, International AdviserBSPC and ObserversBaltic Sea Parliamentary Conference88. Bodo Bahr, Secretary General of the BSPCBaltic Sea NGO Network89. Josefin Carlring, Secretary General of the Norden AssociationSweden90. Anders Bergström, Norden Association Sweden91. Merle Andraschko, Co-Policy Area Coordinator EDUEUSBSR138 List of ParticipantsBaltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum92. Johannes-Emmanuel Allas, Baltic Sea Parliamentary YouthForum 2022, Estonia93. Violetta Borovskikh (Massala), Baltic Sea ParliamentaryYouth Forum 2022, Åland Islands94. Sandra Butoyí, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2022,Norway95. Emma Louisa Döhler, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Germany96. Axel Eriksson, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2022,Sweden97. Simona Jakaitė, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2022,Lithuania98. Julius Janulevičius, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Lithuania99. Nikola Kleinberga, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Latvia100. Maciej Kudra-Bartkowiak, Baltic Sea Parliamentary YouthForum 2022, Poland101. Katri Leppälaakso, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Finland102. Draumey Ósk, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum 2022,Iceland103. Sayed Amin Sayedi, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Germany104. Andreas Schoop, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Germany105. Antonio Gade Wilhelmsen Serri, Baltic Sea ParliamentaryYouth Forum 2022, Norway106. Karolina Siekierka, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Poland107. Vilhelmiina Vierjoki, Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022, Finland108. Manvydas Dziaugys, Youth Coordinator Baltic SeaParliamentary Youth Forum 2022List of Participants 139Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS)109. Grzegorz Poznański, Director General of the CBSSSecretariat110. Bernd Hemingway, Deputy Director General of the CBSSSecretariat111. Thorvaldur Kristjansson, Senior Adviser Regional Identityand Communications112. Dominik Littfass, Adviser and Team Leader forCommunications and Media Relations113. Aline Mayr, Project Coordinator for Regional Identity114. Vendela Gebbie, Assistant of Regional Identity andCommunications115. Therese Ekfeldt, Core team assistantCPMR Baltic Sea Commission116. Lucille Ehrhart, Executive SecretaryInter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)117. Cecilia Widegren, Vice PresidentNefco118. Dennis Hamro-Drotz, Senior Programme ManagerNorthern Dimension Partnership in Public Health and SocialWell-being Secretariat119. Ü lla-Karin Nurm, Director120. Silvija Geistarte, Senior Adviser121. Zane Vinilte, Communications AssistantParliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM)122. Gennaro Migliore, PresidentSkåne Regional County Council123. Annika Annerby Jansson, President124. Johanna Haward, Development Strategist140 List of ParticipantsExecutiveEuropean Commission125. Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs126. Anna Helsen, Advisor Strategic CommunicationMinistriesMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Germany127. Annalena Baerbock, Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs(online participation)Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway128. Anniken Huitfeldt, Minister of Foreign Affairs, CBSSPresidency (online participation)129. Olav Berstad, Chair of the CBSS Committee of SeniorOfficialsMinistry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden130. Eva Ekmehag, Swedish Delegate to the CBSS Committee ofSenior Officials131. Sami Mashial, Political AdviserMinistry for Environment and Climate, Sweden132. Anders Grönvall, State Secretary to the Minister forEnvironment and Climate, Sweden133. Annsofie Aronsson, Desk officer, International AffairsSecretariatGerman Environment Agency, Germany134. Dr Lilian Busse, Chair of HELCOM, Vice president of theGerman Environment AgencyMinistry of Social Security and Labour , Lithuania135. Justina Jakštienė, Vice Minister, Ministry of Social Securityand LabourList of Participants 141Embassies to the Kingdom of Sweden in StockholmEmbassy of Latvia136. H. E. Margus Kolga, Ambassador of Estonia to the Kingdomof SwedenEmbassy of Latvia137. H. E. Ilze Rūse, Ambassador of Latvia to the Kingdom ofSwedenEmbassy of Lithuania138. H. E. Giedrius Čekuolis, Ambassador of Lithuania to theKingdom of Sweden139. Donatas Butkus, Deputy Ambassador of Lithuania to theKingdom of SwedenEmbassy of Poland140. Joanna Hofman, Ambassador of Poland to the Kingdom of SwedenExperts141. Professor Maciej Duszczyk, the Center for MigrationResearch, University of Warsaw142. Jan Eliasson, Former Deputy Secretary-General of the UnitedNations and FormerMinister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden143. Michael Jarlner, Journalist and international editor atPolitiken144. Inger Melander, Expert Fisheries and Market, WWF Sweden,Representative of theBaltic Sea NGO Forum145. Valentyna Shapovalova, PhD fellow at CopenhagenUniversity146. Stefanie Wodrig, Head of Baltic Affairs Desk, SenateChancellery147. Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Associate Professor, LL.D.,Director at the Åland Islands Peace Institute142 List of ParticipantsOther ParticipantsInterpreters148. Catherine Johnson149. Matthias Jansen150. Gyda Thurow151. Maria Hemph Moran152. Jakob Roel153. Piotr Krasnowolski154. Aleksander Jakimovicz155. Gerd Elisabeth MattsonSwedish Secretarial Support156. Marit Baker157. Lena Hemlin158. Malte Moberg159. Elias WergeliusBSPC Secretariat Support160. Jördis Palme161. Marc Hertel162. Ralf Roletschek163. Daria RulevskaList of Participants 143Speakers• Dr Andreas Norlén, Speaker of the Riksdag• Ann Linde, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sweden• Pyry Niemi, MP of Sweden, President of the BSPC• Jan Eliasson, Former Deputy Secretary-General of the UnitedNations and Former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden• Anniken Huitfeldt, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway• Annalena Baerbock, Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs• Gennaro Migliore, President of the Parliamentary Assembly ofthe Mediterranean• Cecilia Widegren, Vice President, Inter-Parliamentary Union• Josefin Carlring, Baltic Sea NGO Network, Secretary Generalthe Nordic Association in Sweden• Annika Annerby Jansson, President of the Regional Assembly,Region Skåne• Michael Jarlner, Journalist and international editor at Politiken• Valentyna Shapovalova, PhD fellow at Copenhagen University• Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Associate Professor, LL.D.,Director at the Åland Islands Peace Institute• Anders Grönvall, State Secretary to Sweden’s Minister forClimate and the Environment• Dr Lilian Busse, HELCOM Chair• Inger Melander, Expert Fisheries and Market, WWF Sweden,Representative of the Baltic Sea NGO Forum• Dennis Hamro-Drotz, Senior Programme Manager• Representative of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum2022• Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner for Home Affairs• Justina Jakštienė, Vice Minister, Ministry of Social Security andLabour, Lithuania• Prof Maciej Duszczyk, Center for Migration Research,University of Warsaw• Beate Schlupp, HELCOM rapporteur• Philipp da Cunha, Rapporteur on Integrated Maritime PolicyPHOTOS