Terveisiä Tukholmasta! Minulla oli tänään hieno kunnia ottaa vastaan Maailman luonnonsuojelusäätiö WWF:n Itämeripalkinto, jonka Ruotsin kuningas Kaarle Kustaa luovutti Suomen suurlähetystössä järjestetyssä seminaarissa, jossa paikalla oli myös kruununprinsessa Victoria. Viime vuonna saman tunnustuksen sai tasavallan presidentti Tarja Halonen.
Voisi sanoa, että kyseessä oli pieni päivä Itämerelle mutta suuri päivä minulle. Tunnelma seminaarissa oli lämmin ja puheenvuorot hyviä. Oli kiva kuulla muun muassa entisen meppikollegani, Ruotsin nykyisen EU-ministeri Cecilia Malmströmin ajatuksia siitä, miten Ruotsin puheenjohtajuuskaudella lopullisesti hyväksyttävää Itämeristrategiaa aletaan käytännössä toteuttaa.
WWF:n Itämeripalkinnon luovutustilaisuus, oik. Ruotsin kuningas Kaarle XVI Kustaa (Kuva: Saana Kyröläinen)
Alla seminaarissa pitämäni puheenvuoro, jossa käyn vähän läpi Itämeren merkitystä itselleni, Itämeristrategian syntyhistoriaa ja sitä, mikä strategian ydin mielestäni on. Mielelläni kuulen blogikommentaattorien ajatuksia Itämeren tilasta ja pelastamisesta.
Lopuksi vielä muutama huomio Itämeren kaasuputkiasiasta, joka puhuttaa meillä ja muualla. Olen itsekin osallistunut debattiin. Olen pitänyt esillä lähinnä kolmea näkökohtaa:
1. Suomi on oikeusvaltio, joka päättää kaasuputkeen liittyvistä asioista oikeusjärjestyksensä mukaisesti. Ensin ympäristövaikutusten arviointi tulee hoitaa loppuun huolellisesti. Oli tärkeää, että pääministeri Vanhanen pyysi kollegaltaan Vladimir Putinilta käyttöömme myös Venäjän tekemää ympäristöarviota. Prosessin seuraavana vaiheena on valtioneuvoston periaatelupa. Tätä päätöstä en halua ennakoida, sillä asiaa koskevaa esitystäkään ei vielä ole olemassa. Päätös tehdään varmasti nopeasti sen jälkeen, kun edellytykset on täytetty. Kolmantena etappina on Länsi-Suomen ympäristölupaviraston lupakäsittely, joka on itsenäinen vaihe. Suomessa päätöksiin liittyy lakien mukaan myös valituksentekomahdollisuus.
2. Pidän kaasuputkesta käytävää keskustelua ymmärrettävänä. Myös kriittisiä äänenpainoja on kuultu Itämeren rannoilta. Arvostelua on osaltaan lisännyt Nord Stream -projektin lanseeraustapa. Vaikka hanke on ennen muuta Saksan ja Venäjän välinen, koskettaa se useita EU-maita. Avoimuus ja konsultaatiot olisivat hälventäneet epäluuloja. Tämä seikka on hyvä huomioida jatkossa.
Näen Nord Stream -kaasuputkihankkeen vaikutusten Suomen kannalta olevan ennen kaikkea ympäristöllisiä. Juuri Itämeren heikko tila huomioiden ympäristökysymykset ovat tärkeitä. Koska Suomi on rantavaltio, koskevat ympäristövaikutukset meitäkin. Tietenkin kaasuputkella on myös taloudellista merkitystä Venäjälle kaasun myyjänä ja Euroopassa oleville kaasun ostajille.
Nord Streamin turvallisuuspoliittisista vaikutuksista on myös käyty keskustelua. Oma näkemykseni on, ettei kaasuputki aiheuta mitään mullistusta. Itämeri on nimittäin jo nykyisellään, ilman putkeakin, Venäjälle elintärkeä logistinen reitti. Esimerkiksi öljykuljetukset, 140 miljoonaa tonnia vuodessa, ovat iso tekijä (myös ympäristöllisesti). Toiseksi uskon Venäjän sotilaallisen läsnäolon Itämeren alueella vahvistuvan, oli putkea tai ei. Talousvaikeuksista johtuen presenssi oli 90-luvulta alkaen suhteellisen ohut. Tilanne kuitenkin muuttuu talouden vahvistuessa.
3. On hahmotettava energian laajempi eurooppalainen raami. Eurooppa tarvitsee lisää energiaa. Kuljetusreittien lisääntyminen vahvistaa Euroopan energiavarmuutta. Nord Stream -kaasuputki ei sekään yksin riitä. Sen kapasiteetti (55 miljardia kuutiometriä) riittää täyttämään vain 10% Euroopan vuosittaisesta kaasutarpeesta. Siksi EU tarvitsee myös muita putkireittejä kuten Nabuccoa. Sekä energian tuontimaita että tuontireittejä on syytä lisätä. Kaiken kaikkiaan EU tarvitsisi yhteistä energiapolitiikkaa, johon kaikki jäsenmaat olisivat sitoutuneet. Tavoite on kaikkea muuta kuin helppo, mutta vasta se tekisi EU:sta todella vahvan toimijan myös energiakysymyksissä.
Puheeni Tukholmasssa:
Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear friends of the Baltic Sea,
Let me begin by telling you a little story about the Baltic Sea.
July 1976. I remember it as if it was yesterday.
I am eight years old. Mum, Dad, my brother and I are in our little boat. It?s summer, and there?s endless glorious sunshine.
We spend four weeks in the beautiful Finnish archipelago. Nothing beats it, I mean nothing.
We visit friends in the islands. Everyone has their little summer place. Nature pure and simple. No electricity. Only a radio, which keeps us updated about the weather forecast.
We swim every day. The Baltic Sea is beautiful, clean and clear.
My brother and I sit at the front of our boat, as it ploughs through the sea at a lazy pace. We gaze at the bottom, and try to count the fish.
?Pappa, watch out! There is a rock on the starboard side.? We avoid it, and sail on.
Thirty years on, I am back in the archipelago with my children. I tell them stories of my childhood summers.
I hear a seagull in the distance. A sailboat passes by. I look down at the sea and I can?t see the bottom. I feel sad.
I tell Emilie, 5, and Oliver, 2, that when I was their age, I could see the bottom of the sea from here.
?What bottom?? my daughter asks, as she stares at the green gunk. I try to explain that the sea, much like a bathtub, has a bottom. If you are tall enough, or if you know how to dive, you can touch it. If you are lucky, you can see it.
Emilie looks puzzled. ?But Pappa, why can?t we see the bottom?? she asks. ?Because we, the big people, have neglected the sea for many years. It?s been polluted. We have made it dirty,? I answer.
Silence. Suddenly Emilie looks at me and asks: ?But Pappa, I thought it was only babies that did kakka in the bath tub.? I look at her, and nod without giving an answer….
I was born and raised some 20 metres from the Baltic Sea on a little island called Lehtisaari in western Helsinki. I spent most of my summers on our little motorsailer in the Finnish archipelago.
I’m honoured to be with you in this occasion, and grateful for being able to join the distinguished group of people that have earlier been awarded the WWF’s Baltic Sea Award.
I take this award as a recognition of the new momentum in the work for a better and sustainable state of the environment of the Baltic Sea. Work towards this goal is being carried out with renewed energy and by numerous actors; decision-makers at national and local level, non-governmental organisations, foundations and individuals – and to a growing extent also by companies and businesses. Everybody is involved.
This widening circle of actors is good news for the Baltic Sea.
And, under the guidance of the Swedish Presidency, we are soon going to have new tools available for our work on Baltic Sea Issues. The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region is destined for adoption at the October European Council.
To me this represents a significant milestone in a process that began some five years ago. The successful enlargement of the Union presented us with new possibilities in the Baltic Sea Region. As a member of the European Parliament I wanted to see the EU to recognize and seize the opportunity. I started to work with the idea of EU’s Baltic Sea Strategy together with my colleagues in the European Parliament ? Eija-Riitta Korhola, Piia-Noora Kauppi, Ville Itälä, Henrik Lax, Cecilia Malmström, Satu Hassi and Toomas Hendrik Ilves, now the President of Estonia, and naturally Christopher Beazley as the chair of the Baltic Intergroup of the European Parliament.
In the beginning it was by no means easy. There were even some that were against the idea of a Baltic Sea Strategy. They were afraid it would impinge on the Northern Dimension. Oh how wrong they were. I would actually argue that the Northern Dimension was given a new lifeline with the Baltic Sea Strategy.
The conclusions from the process that we initiated at the European Parliament were included in my report on the Baltic Sea Strategy for the Northern Dimension which was adopted in October 2006. I used to speak about ”ten commandments”. The first one was directed to the Commission that should come up with a proposal for an EU Baltic Sea Strategy. Biblical vigour aside. Still, I consider the report on the Baltic Sea Strategy as a highlight of my mandate as a Member of the EP.
It is quite a rare occasion that a request from the EP leads to a significant new proposal from the Commission. Of course, we needed to convince the European Council as well, and here the role of Sweden was crucial. In December 2007 the European Council asked the Commission to present a proposal for EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region by June 2009. The seed was planted by the EP and now we are bearing witness to the fruit.
I want to use this occasion to thank the Commission for their excellent work. The Commission, under the guidance of the commissioner for regional policy, Mrs Danuta Hubner, made a successful effort for a transparent process when preparing their proposal. The Commission accepted right from the start that there is no specific new wisdom in Brussels about this region, and therefore there would have to be a good amount of contacts and dialogue with the real actors from the region. I believe that this openness helps in creating strong ownership in the region for the strategy and the action plan.
May I use this opportunity for a small commercial break. After the Swedish Presidency, the President of Finland Tarja Halonen and Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen together with Baltic Sea Action Group will host the Baltic Sea Action Summit in February 2010 in Helsinki. The idea is to join forces between the states and other public actors in the Baltic Sea region and the private sector and get commitments for saving the Baltic Sea.
We all know that a good amount of organisations and networks exist in the Baltic Sea Region. What is the added value of an EU strategy? Three things spring to mind.
First of all, we can deepen integration in the region. We can put EU’s policies, programmes and finances into more effective use in order to save the marine environment and in order to have joint guidelines in managing the different uses of the sea; maritime activities, energy production and transport, leisure etc. The EU is a good framework for developing more efficient maritime surveillance or to plan for better energy interconnections or to stimulate joint research and student mobility.
Secondly, we can improve our economies together. The Baltic Sea Region consists of mainly small or medium-sized states and societies with significant socio-economic differences between them. Deeper integration and intensified cooperation would help in seeing this region as a globally interesting, attractive place to invest, to visit and to live in.
And thirdly; the strengthening ties and connections within the EU framework will help in enhancing the sense of security in this region. This is one of the primary products of integration still today.
Dear friends,
The WWF’s primary concerns in the Baltic Sea Region are presented in the Baltic Sea Score Card published here today. Finland shares those concerns. The Baltic Sea’s marine environment is in bad shape and needs corrective action speedily from all the states in the region. Eutrophication of the sea is the most serious challenge and requires significant reductions in the amounts of phosphorus entering the sea from the catchment area.
All of the coastal states have made a political commitment in the Helsinki Commission’s Baltic Sea Action Plan in 2007 to restore the good ecological state of the sea by 2021. This political commitment needs to be supported with many legislative and practical measures. The EU can help in many ways in implementing the HELCOM’s Action Plan.
Despite good success, like with the wastewater treatment in the Baltic States, in Poland and in St Petersburg, we have plenty more to do. It is a real tragedy for the Baltic Sea that wastewaters from Kaliningrad are being discharged untreated into the sea.
At the same time, intensive farming fuelled by the Common Agricultural Policy, is adding to the injury. Reductions in the agricultural load are a challenge also for Finland. The Finnish government has, in a report presented to the Parliament this summer, committed itself to new measures under the agri-environmental support scheme to minimize the load arising from agriculture.
The special vulnerability of the Baltic Sea and the specific needs resulting from this need to be better reflected in EU’s common policies. Here I am especially thinking about the Common Agricultural Policy, the Fisheries policy and the need to implement the Marine Strategy Directive
Another challenge is that maritime traffic, including oil transport is increasing rapidly in these shallow waters; already now more than 2000 vessels sail at the Baltic Sea every day and this figure is set to rise considerably in the coming two decades.
The Union has done a lot in recent years to develop maritime safety and sea traffic surveillance. Because of the dense and growing traffic in a small sea area, the Baltic Sea is a good test bed for enhanced cooperation between coastal states in these issues.
And when I’m speaking about coastal states, I mean all of them. It is a wise starting point to admit that we cannot solve joint problems in the Baltic Sea area without close cooperation between the EU and our neighbours. Russia is an important partner for the whole EU, a member of the Helsinki Commission and – to take a practical example – Finland, Russia and Estonia jointly run the Gulf of Finland Reporting System for vessel traffic. Waste water treatment in St Petersburg has been developed in successful cooperation in the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership.
I think we have established a solid base for extended cooperation, and the EU’s Baltic Sea Strategy should have an extensive external dimension for dealing with all the states in the Baltic Sea catchment area.
Dear friends,
The EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region is right now one of the prime examples of initiatives that are close to people’s thinking on where the EU could actually do more than it currently does.
I’m confident that the Swedish EU Presidency will get the green light for the strategy from all member states and that the action plan gets a good start this autumn. I think the primary reason for believing that this will not be forgotten on the shelf, is the fact that the strategy is firmly rooted in the region.
I began by telling you a story of my childhood experiences from the Baltic Sea. I am not striving for eternal youth , but I want to see the bottom of the Baltic Sea again. For that we need to work together relentlessly. So far we have a Baltic Sea Strategy report from the European Parliament, proposal from the Commission and the Action Plan that will be finalised under the Swedish Presidency. Now we need action from all of us!
I want to thank the World Wildlife Fund once again for the award and wish all success for your valuable work for the Baltic Sea environment.
