29Vision 2030: Acting for the Future of the Baltic Sea Region 29Th Baltic

2YEARS9 Baltic Sea BSPCParliamentary Conference Vision 2030: Acting for the Future of the Baltic Sea Region 29th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference 2929 29th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference Digital - 24 August 2020 2YEARS9 Baltic Sea BSPCParliamentary Conference 2 Vision 2030: The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC) Acting for the Future of the Baltic Sea Region was established in 1991 as a forum for political dialogue between parliamentarians from the Bal- th 29 Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference tic Sea Region. BSPC aims at raising awareness and opinion on issues of current political interest and relevance for the Baltic Sea Region. It pro- motes and drives various initiatives and efforts to Text: Marc Hertel and Bodo Bahr support a sustainable environmental, social and Layout: Produktionsbüro TINUS economic development of the Baltic Sea Region. It strives at enhancing the visibility of the Baltic Sea Region and its issues in a wider European context. BSPC gathers parliamentarians from 11 national parliaments, 11 regional parliaments and 5 parliamentary organizations around the Baltic Sea. The BSPC thus constitutes a unique parliamentary bridge between all the EU- and non-EU countries of the Baltic Sea Region. BSPC external interfaces include parliamentary, governmental, sub-regional and other organizations in the Baltic Sea Region and the Northern Dimension area, among them CBSS, HELCOM, the Northern Dimension Partnership in Health and Social Well-Being (NDPHS), the Baltic Sea Labour Forum (BSLF), the Baltic Sea States Sub-regional Cooperation (BSSSC) and the Baltic Development Forum. BSPC shall initiate and guide political activities in the region; support and strengthen democratic institutions in the participating states; improve dialogue between governments, parliaments and civil society; strengthen the common identity of the Baltic Sea Region by means of close co-operation between national and regional parliaments on the basis of equality; and initiate and guide Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference political activities in the Baltic Sea Region, Bodo Bahr endowing them with additional democratic Secretary General legitimacy and parliamentary authority. +49 171 5512557 The political recommendations of the [email protected] annual Parliamentary Conferences are www.bspc.net expressed in a Conference Resolution adopted by consensus by the Conference. The adopted Resolution shall be submitted to the govern- BSPC Secretariat ments of the Baltic Sea Region, the CBSS and Schlossgartenallee 15 the EU, and disseminated to other relevant 19061 Schwerin national, regional and local stakeholders in the Germany Baltic Sea Region and its neighbourhood. 3 Contents The Opening of the Conference ........................... 5 Session one Vision 2030: Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region, Safe and Prosperous Development – Common Effective and Sustainable Solutions for the Future ................. 19 Session two Vision 2030: Safeguarding our Environment, Seas and Oceans for Future Generations .................. 33 Session three Vision 2030: Migration and Integration: Finding Common Solutions Based on Mutual Information and Best Practices ................... 51 Reports by the BSPC Rapporteurs ................... 67 Addresses by observers and guests of the BSPC ......... 77 The Closing of the Conference ........................... 82 List of Participants ��89 Photos .......................................... 100 4 Opening of the Conference Opening of the Conference 5 The Opening of the Conference BSPC President Valerijus Simulik BSPC President Valerijus Simulik began by noting that it was a great pleasure for him to open the 29th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference. The parliamentarians had come together to discuss the cooperation in the Baltic Sea region. It was also important to review the cooperation in order to revise what had been achieved. It was even more important to discuss what issues were yet to be solved and what were the main reasons for the absence of a giant debt level. On behalf of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, the president expressed his deep gratitude for their devotion to Baltic Sea cooperation to H.E. Mr Gitanas Nausėda, President of the Republic of Lithuania, H. E. Mr Viktoras Pranckietis, Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, and Mr Virginijus Sinkevičius, Euro- pean Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries. He yielded the floor to Mr Sigitas Mitkus who would speak on behalf of the President of the Republic of Lithuania. 6 Opening of the Conference Mr Sigitas Mitkus Speech by Mr Sigitas Mitkus, On Behalf of H. E. Mr Gitanas Nausėda, President of the Republic of Lithuania Mr Mitkus said it was a great honour and privilege for him to read the opening speech of His Excellency, Mr Gitanas Nausėda, Presi- dent of the Republic of Lithuania. In the president’s name, he stated that it was a great privilege to open the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference at this challenging but highly important time for the Baltic Sea region as a whole. On 1 July, Lithuania had taken over the annual rotating presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States from Denmark. In order to meet regional challenges, they had decided to pursue the Green Economy, greater visibility of the region, growth and jobs, people-to-people contacts, environmental issues of the Baltic Sea and the vision of the Baltic Sea until 2030. But it was very difficult to talk about the agenda of the nation’s presidency on this day while all of them had been watching with great concern the developments in Belarus following the presidential election on 9 August. They had seen brutal repression by the Bela- rusian authorities against peaceful demonstrators and journalists. They had seen testimonies of their released detainees and mass vio- lations of human rights. Thousands had been detained and imprisoned, hundreds tortured, several killed. It mobilised the Belarusian people to aspire to freedom and change in their country. Then thou- Opening of the Conference 7 sands and hundreds of thousands of people had spilled into the streets across the country. Their freedom, their free and democratic will should not meet silence. Sanctions against those responsible for violence, repression and falsification of election results must be introduced. All those responsible for torture and brutality must be prosecuted. All countries should establish independence and sover- eignty from others, fair and free elections with the presence of inter- national observers, the right of people to protest peacefully, the right of people not to be beaten, tortured and imprisoned. These are the values that should be defended. The people of the Bal- tic States – Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians – remembered per- fectly well that thirty years ago, they had been looking forward to every word or action of support from the free world. The day before the conference, more than fifty thousand people had joined a human chain stretching from the Lithuanian capital Vilnius to the border with Belarus, stressing their support for the Belarusian people. The people of Belarus had made it clear that the popular vote went to its national leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Belarus was now on its way to freedom, just as the Baltic countries had been thirty years earlier, - freedom from fear, lies and manipulation. Finally, on the vision of the Baltic Sea region, the Lithuanian presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States had already offered an assessment of the implementation of the vision for 2020 which had been adopted ten years before. Said assessment was planned to be followed by a new Vilnius declaration of a vision for the Baltic Sea region until 2030. Speaking for the president, Mr Mitkus said that he would like to believe that this would include a free and democratic Belarus. BSPC President Simulik thanked Mr Mitkus and asked him to convey their best wishes to the Lithuanian president. He went on to invite the Speaker of the Seimas of Lithuania to take the floor. 8 Opening of the Conference Speech by H.E. Mr Viktoras Pranckietis, Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania Mr Pranckietis opened by noting his happiness at addressing the 29th Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, which he extolled as exceptional. That was because it marked the first time that it was held in a remote format instead of meeting directly. Even though the speaker could not shake the hands of the attendees in Vilnius, he stated his belief that this remote meeting would be no less con- structive in terms of fruitful debates. He noted that the COVID-19 pandemic was posing enormous challenges to parliaments. The same huge challenge was also faced by the extremely important inter-parliamentary cooperation. Nevertheless, it was particularly essential now to maintain the cooperation between parliaments and governments at as intensive a level as possible. In this time, especially, it was necessary to ensure that the representatives elected by the people continued to work closely together in a spirit of confidence, providing the necessary energy for future action. In this year, the Speaker of the Seimas went on, the Baltic Sea Par- liamentary Conference would discuss safe and successful cooperation and development in the Baltic Sea region, with a view to over- coming the COVID-19 pandemic. Preservation of the environment, seas and oceans for future generations, migration and integration,

Load more