Commission tables Baltic region blueprint

Anticipating the beginning of the Swedish EU Presidency, the European Commission yesterday (10 June) tabled a wide-ranging strategy for the Baltic region, focusing on an environmental clean-up of the sea and energy interconnections. The EU executive said the strategy may provide a blueprint for other regions, like the Danube or the Mediterranean.

The Commission adopted its proposal for an EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region and an accompanying action plan on 10 June. The strategy identifies four pillars for EU action: environmental sustainability, economic prosperity, geographical accessibility and attractiveness and making the area safe and secure. Accordingly, the action plan identifies 15 priority areas and a number of horizontal actions on which some 80 flagship projects have been tagged for implementation. Examples of priority areas include reducing nutrient inputs into the sea, encouraging sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries, improving transport links and cooperation on transposing EU directives.

The strategy foresees no new funding for the proposed measures. Instead, the region's member states are encouraged to use €50 billion of EU cohesion policy funding, and other EU monies will be made available too. According to the Commission, €27 billion will be allocated to improving accessibility, nearly €10 billion to the environment, €6.7 billion to competitiveness and €697 million to security and risk prevention. 

Electricity link-up

The plan also aims to tackle the region's isolated electricity markets, which suffer from insufficient interconnections. A list of priority projects is being established in the framework of the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP).One key project is the 350-kilometre long NordBalt power cable from Sweden to Lithuania, which could be completed by 2016. Another cable, the 800 megawatt Estlink-2, will be built between Finland and Estonia and could be brought online by 2013. Power grids will also be strengthened in Sweden, Lithuania and Latvia, EU diplomats said.

The absence of economies of scale and significant competition has lead to higher prices and few incentives or opportunities to invest in infrastructure, especially renewable energies, the Commission said. The EU strategy aims to integrate energy markets, particularly in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, so as to reduce prices, facilitate the diversification of energy sources and "enable the introduction of solidarity mechanisms".

All new power links would be backed by a common Baltic energy trading market, to be set up by 2013, which would probably be guided by existing rules for the Scandinavian Nord Pool market.

Environmental impact of Nord Stream 

Asked whether the new strategy considers the environmental impact of the Nord Stream pipeline project, a planned 1,220-kilometre natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, an EU official noted that the project had been left out of the strategy because "only issues that the EU could deal with" are included in the document. Baltic politicians and environmental NGOs stressed that the Baltic seabed is especially vulnerable to environmental damage caused by the laying of the large steel and concrete-reinforced pipes. They also fear that dumped World War II conventional and toxic munitions, toxins and mercury could be disturbed during construction.

Asked whether the project could figure among BEMIP's priority projects, the official said there were "a lot of 'ifs' and 'buts'" but if it did, its environmental impact would need to measured and taken into account.

Model for future EU macro-region strategies?

The strategy is a "major step", as it "marks a new way of working together in the Union," said EU Regional Policy Commisisoner Danuta Hübner. "For the first time, we have a strategy for an EU macro-region." The development of the Baltic Sea strategy has triggered huge interest elsewhere, and the upcoming June summit's draft conclusions indicate that EU leaders will ask the Commission to develop, by end of 2010, a similar strategy and action plan for the Danube basin on related issues that cannot be solved alone, Hübner added.

Positions:

The Nordic Council of Ministers noted that it can help introduce a more flexible single market around the Baltic Sea "by stepping up its efforts to abolish obstacles to cross-border freedom of movement in the Nordic countries", the lack of which the EU strategy describes as an impediment to prosperity in the region. Environmental NGO WWF urged the Swedish government "to use all the tools it has available to ensure that the strategy will go far beyond its rhetoric and implement the strategy as a model for the rest of Europe to follow". "There is an urgent need to overcome the chaos of multiple and overlapping competencies and authorities in the Baltic Sea. It is obvious to everybody by now that regional challenges can only be properly addressed through regional approaches and solutions," said Pauli Merriman, director of the WWF's Baltic Ecoregion Programme.

Next steps:

• 18-19 June 2009: EU summit to back the strategy and call for the development of a similar strategy for the Danube region. 
• Second half of 2009: Baltic Sea region is one of the priority issues for the Swedish EU Presidency. 
• Sept. 2009: Swedish EU Presidency conference on Baltic Sea region.
• Oct. 2009: EU summit to adopt the strategy and action plan. 
• By end 2009: Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) to establish a list of priority projects to connect the Baltic states to regional energy networks.
• By end 2010: The Commission to present a regional strategy for the Danube area.
• 2011: First review of the Baltic Sea strategy and action plan.