Magazine / Current / The Baltic Sea / Article | 02/07/2008

Looking into the Distance

A European strategy for the Baltic Sea will be worked out with Sweden's European Council presidency in 2009. Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt describes the dynamic region, environmental concerns and the role of the EU.

Looking back over the past 16 years the Baltic Sea region has been a success story. Today it is a region where growth is strong, the level of innovation is high, efforts to create sustainable development are impressive and societies are stable.

Photo: Rita Ansone, Balticness/ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia

The fact that the Baltic Sea region has been doing so well has been partly due to the systematic and successful reform of the economies and societies of especially Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, but indeed also of countries like Denmark, Finland and Sweden since the early 1990s. Still, there are a number of issues in Northern Europe that we need to address if we are to meet current and future challenges in the region.

Broad expanses and few people

The extensive growth effects stemming from structural reforms are bound to tail off. The slowdown could easily coincide with accelerating globalisation exposing our region to even more rapidly increasing competition. Seen in a broader perspective, the Baltic Sea region has a number of comparative disadvantages such as its vast geographical size combined with a relatively sparse population. Moreover, its post-war division has resulted in different levels of economic development. The fact that the Baltic Sea and other seas in the west separate the countries of the region creates a number of logistical disadvantages. The energy grids are still partly divided between the eastern and western parts of the region.

Oil shipments to double

Another area of concern for the Baltic Sea region relates to the ecological situation of the Baltic Sea itself. The current levels of eutrophication pose a threat to the ecosystem and have to decrease if we are to succeed in protecting the marine environment. A further challenge is the rapid expansion of energy transit through the Baltic Sea, in particular oil shipments, which by 2015 will almost double to 230 million tonnes of crude oil annually. An accident involving a 100 000 tonne tanker in the Baltic Sea would risk creating a far greater disaster in this shallow, enclosed sea than the 70 000 tonne Prestige catastrophe in the Bay of Biscay in 2002. We need reliable capabilities to deal rapidly and effectively with this threat.

Coming closer since 1990

When trying to address these challenges we should recognise the fact that today eight out of nine Baltic Sea littoral states are EU members. This implies a fundamental change of the situation compared with the 1990s, when most of today's regional cooperation initiatives were taken. With Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland joining the Schengen passport union, the last physical borders are now being lifted.
In a few more years, a majority of states around the Baltic are likely to be full members of the euro area. Our region needs to address many of the main challenges to the region through EU policies and instruments open to EU members. To a large extent this also concerns Norway and Iceland, which in many practical respects are Baltic Sea region states as well as parts of the EU internal market through their participation in the European Economic Area (EEA).

What needs to be done?

The first and overriding objective should be to deepen the actual integration both between the region's EU members and between the Baltic Sea region and the rest of the European Union. This should be done in order to overcome the internal divide as well as the physical divide between the region and the continent. We have to find ways to compensate for long distances, limited population and major development differences in the region. For instance, it will be important to adopt a harmonised approach to the full implementation among the region's member states of key EU directives, linked to the functioning and development of the internal market. Some examples of how to attain this objective are to draw extensively on concrete instruments and to make efforts among the member states to improve interoperability, for example of company law and trade regulations. Interesting ideas and concrete suggestions for action have also been presented at Baltic Development Forum Summits and in the State of the Region Reports.

Motorways of the Sea

Similarly, we could also promote a stronger joint regional approach to R&D, innovation and SME network development. Further, in order to facilitate the region's deeper cohesion as well as its stronger interconnection with other parts of the EU, key issues of mutual accessibility (infrastructure, transport, logistics, ICT) need to be addressed. Some plans and projects already agreed upon or being implemented, such as Motorways of the Sea and the Fehmarn Belt bridge, have great potential for further development. They will also be of reciprocal benefit to all EU member states.

Less nitrogen and phosphorus

As to the environmental challenges, there is a promising potential for increased efforts to find solutions, as eight out of nine littoral states today belong to the EU and considerable improvement can be achieved through a coordinated and targeted investment programme. Measures are needed to reach full compliance with EU environmental requirements in all EU Baltic Sea states in order to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus and to lower the level of nutrients from agriculture reaching the sea. There is also a need to achieve the highest possible standards as regards the removal of phosphorus from waste water. A coordinated and sustainable approach to agriculture is essential, as the EU agricultural and structural funds play a significant role in the development of agriculture around the Baltic Sea as well as in the mitigation of associated environmental implications. With regard to the increasing risks of a major oil tanker disaster, given that transit volumes are set to double, we need to ensure that we have the resources both to prevent and to act swiftly should a disaster occur.

The Swedish strategy

In order to deal with these profound challenges and to ensure that the Baltic Sea region will remain a successful and competitive part of Europe, the Swedish Government has taken up the suggestion for an EU Baltic Sea Strategy as one of the key objectives for the Swedish EU Presidency in the second half of 2009. A significant step in this direction was the decision by the EU Summit in December 2007 to invite the Commission to present an EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region by June 2009. The EU Baltic Sea Strategy that will be adopted in the autumn of 2009 should be a concrete, action-oriented instrument which helps the EU and the EU members in the Baltic Sea region to set joint priorities, for instance concerning investments in infrastructure, to speed up joint implementation of EU decisions, and to better harmonise national regulations so as to create a genuinely single and thus bigger regional market, which in turn would become more interesting both to the region itself and to the rest of Europe.

Using regional ressources

Similarly, on the environmental side, we need measures that address the specificity of the environmental challenges related to the Baltic Sea. A strategy could be regarded in part as a trans-national priority instrument. This is something I believe will be needed in some other EU regions as well, looking around the corner, when the recently signed Lisbon Treaty will make territorial cohesion an explicit objective of the enlarged Union. As a joint priority instrument for the Baltic Sea region, a strategy would facilitate an effective use of both EU resources and the region's own financial and other resources. The end result will be much more concrete action and value for money. A final word should be said regarding cooperation with the only Baltic Sea littoral state which is not an EU member, the Russian Federation. Of course there is a need to deepen and develop cooperation in our region with Russia as well regarding trade facilitation, oil transit and environmental issues. But here the EU already has a well-functioning instrument in the EU Northern Dimension. I firmly believe that the Northern Dimension and the Baltic Sea Strategy will be mutually reinforcing.

This text was first published in BDF Magazine, Spring 2008, of the Baltic Development Forum.

Fredrik Reinfeldt

Fredrik Reinfeldt, geboren 1965 in Österhaninge, ist seit Oktober 2006 schwedischer Ministerpräsident. Er ist der Vorsitzende der liberal-konservativen Moderata samlingspartiet (Moderate Sammlungspartei).
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Further articles on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » Environmental Policy, » Energy Policy, » Infrastructure / Travel and Transport, » Economic Policy, » Sweden, » Russia, » Baltic States
More from the press review on the subject » EU Enlargement / Neighbourhood Policy, » Environmental Policy, » Energy Policy, » Infrastructure / Travel and Transport, » Economic Policy, » Sweden, » Russia, » Baltic States