BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

possibilities. HELCOM decision in 1990 to establish an ad
hoc group to bring the 1974 convention in line with the
developments pointed out, among others, the following
issues that the group should consider:
*increasing legally binding provisionsin the field of
prevention and control
*application of the precautionary principle
*development of legal instruments to control pollution
from diffuse sources
*enlargement of the convention area to cover the internal
waters of the contracting parties and the whole catchment
area of the Baltic Sea
*reporting procedures to strenghten the follow-up
The revision was to be completed in 1994. The ad hoc group
was not adviced to prepare a new convention, nor was it
instructed not to do so.
Furter developments stepped in, namely the Ronneby
conference in September 1990, which gave new ideas for the
revision work, and the energetic Swedish Minister of the
Environment, who urged the ad hoc group and HELCOM to
complete the revision already two years earlier, that is
in early 1992.
The result presented first to HELCOM and after its
blessing to the diplomatic conference in April 1992 was a
new convention since the ad hoc group had realized towards
the end of its work that the amendments to the 1974
convention would be so extensive as to justify their
incorporation in a new convention that would replace the
existing one. One of the reasons that made that solution
even more appealing was the wish to prepare for the EEC an
opportunity to participate in the conference on equal
footing with the coastal states. We recall that a process
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