BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

the general public, openness within HELCOM, and thereby
better ensure compliance with the oblications under the
convention and HELCOM recommendations.
We are now engaged in drafting the national laws and
regulations to enable us to ratify the new convention.
That may be a major job, depending on the state and nature
of our laws on environmental protevtion. The new laws
only provide the authority and framework for national
implementation of the convention. For some contracting
parties the entry into force of the new convention is not
any major change in the ongoing process, for some it may
be. But the truth is that implementation of a convention
is not only a bureaucratic process, it is also harnessing
major national and international resources towards
reaching the goals of the convention- a quote from the
preamble of the convention: to assure the ecological
restoration of the Baltic Sea, ensuring the possibility of
self-regeneration of the marine environment and
preservation of its ecological balance.
19