Yesterday, a hearing on the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region took place. Stakeholders, mainly from the Swedish civil service, met to review the two years since the strategy was initiated under the Swedish EU Presidency, and discuss what the future holds.
The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region contains 15 priority areas and over 80 flagship projects, which are coordinated by a range of institutions from national Ministries, to scientific institutes, universities and regional authorities. Several of these relate to the marine environment and fisheries issues.
Birgitta Ohlsson, Sweden’s EU Minister, was the keynote speaker and also appeared in the panel discussion. She stressed the importance of regional integration as a means of combatting international issues such as fisheries management, energy security and transport links. Moreover, as development in the Baltic Sea area, populated by 60 million people, entails risks to the environment, a regional approach was necessary to mitigate against such issues. To this end she welcomed the increased cooperation between national civil services that has grown via the strategy.
During the panel discussion, Inger Näslund of WWF Sweden pointed out that according to her organisation’s Baltic Sea scorecard many Baltic States do not implement legislation which they have committed to in international forums. She hoped that as this is an EU strategy with Member States participating, it would not be merely a discussion forum, but an actor that uses its legislative powers to improve sustainable regional development and management.
Regarding BALTFISH, the discussion forum for fisheries in the Baltic which is a flagship project coordinated by the Swedish Ministry for Rural Affairs, questions were raised over where it fits in with regard to other institutions such as Helcom and the BS RAC. Moreover, the lack of transparency regarding the closed meeting of fisheries directors was questioned.