The EU Baltic Sea Strategy

The EU Baltic Sea Strategy – a pioneer for macro-regional cooperation in the EU

The Baltic countries are joining forces to save their shared inland sea and to strengthen the competitiveness of the region. In a special EU Baltic Sea Strategy, the countries will tackle common problems and take advantage of the region’s distinctive features – without it costing the EU anything extra. The hope is that more regions in the EU will follow suit.

Europe’s largest inland sea is in a bad way. Overfertilisation, algal bloom, overfishing, pollution – the Baltic countries together have major environmental problems to address. But it is not just problems that unite them. The countries also have a similar history, common features and already cooperate in a number of areas. To overcome the environmental problems, but also to increase the region’s competitiveness and prosperity, the Baltic countries have united on a common Baltic Sea Strategy.

It started at the December 2007 EU summit, where the EU heads of state and government challenged the Commission to develop a strategy for the Baltic region. On 10 June 2009, the Commission presents its proposal, together with an action plan and a timetable for the implementation of the strategy.

The need for a special EU strategy for the Baltic countries has largely arisen from the fact that eight of the nine Baltic countries became members of the EU with the major eastern enlargement in 2004. In practice, this strategy is a return to what once was. The Baltic Sea has been an important communication channel for thousands of years. In the Middle Ages, trade in the region flourished. But in modern times, the Cold War’s Iron Curtain cut down the middle of the sea and made cooperation impossible. Now the Baltic countries feel that it is high time to work together again.

The EU Baltic Sea Strategy has three main aims: to make the Baltic Sea cleaner, to make the region more dynamic and prosperous, and to improve security. It is a question of, among other things, outlawing phosphates in washing powder and thereby reducing algal bloom, which transforms the Baltic into a slushy mess every summer. And of fighting human trafficking and integrating the Baltic countries’ sea patrols, or abolishing trade barriers and making it easier for small companies to set up business in other Member States.

The Baltic countries are to become better at cooperating and finding shared solutions. Not a single additional euro will be spent on implementing the strategy. Instead, it is about making better use of the money that is already available and about distributing it more effectively.

This type of regional EU cooperation does not exist anywhere else today. The hope is that more regions in the EU will follow the example of the EU Baltic Sea Strategy and use the same working methods to cope with their own specific challenges.