Starting from Wednesday, 9–10 March, the 32nd annual meeting of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) and high-level meeting will be taking place in Helsinki. It will sum up the planned activities of the previous and the upcoming year. The heads of the HELCOM work groups (MONAS, HABITATS, MARITIME, RESPONSE, LAND) will present the Commission with an overview of the activities of their workgroups. Convention states will present an overview of the developments in implementation of the Baltic Sea action plan. The financial report of the HELCOM and the next year’s budget is also discussed. In addition, on-going and starting projects of HELCOM, as well as the working plan of the new period will be discussed. On 9 March, a high-level HELCOM meeting will take place in Helsinki, and Estonia will be represented by the Secretary General of the Ministry of the Environment Rita Annus. A common declaration is planned to be adopted at the meeting. The Helsinki Commission or HELCOM deals with the protection of the Baltic Sea environment from all sources of pollution, in joint cooperation between the European Union, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Russia. In November 2007, the HELCOM countries and the European Union passed an innovative Baltic Sea action plan that involves methods for accomplishing the Baltic Sea environmental objectives and evaluation of these objectives. The objective of the Baltic Sea action plan is to achieve good ecological condition of the Baltic Sea by 2021. |
