BALTIC SEAENVIRONMENT PROCEEDINGS No. 59 - Helcom

The Baltic Sea Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action
Programme (JCP)
- Status of action taken and planned -
Terttu Melvasalo, HELCOM, Senior Advisor
Riga, Latvia, 30 August - 3 September 1993
I BACKGROUND
The Prime Ministers of the Baltic Sea riparians gathered in September 1990
in a Conference in Ronneby, Sweden and decided that the state of the Baltic
Sea called for the elaboration of a major international action programme in
order to restore the Baltic Sea to a sound ecological balance. A Task Force
consisting of representatives of all relevant countries in the Baltic Sea
catchment area, five multilateral international financial institutions and the
European Commission elaborated the Programme on the basis of national
plans and pre-feasibility studies. A summary of these studies was published
as Baltic Sea Environment Proceedings (BSEP) No. 46. The Task Force
submitted the Programme to a Diplomatic Conference in April 1992 of
representatives of countries in the Baltic Sea catchment and the European
Commission. They adopted the JCP and decided to establish a HELCOM
Programme Implementation Task Force consisting of the 14 countries in the
Baltic Sea catchment area, the European Commission, the five multilateral
international financial institutions and the International Baltic Sea Fishery
Commission (IBSFC). The JCP is published as BSEP No. 48. The Conference
also called for the organization of a High Level Resource Mobilization
Conference which was held in March 1993 in Gdansk, Poland. It was already
clear at this point that JCP implementation will require a multiplicity of funding
sources, particularly in Eastern countries in transition which at least for the
time being would not be in a position to mobilize all requisite resources. A
compilation of statements at this conference was published as BSEP No. 47.
II CONTENTS
The Programme has a lifetime of 20 years with projected costs of investment
for its implementation of some 18 billion ECU. The JCP has six elements.
While it focuses at its core on element 3 “Investment Activities” for the
deletion of point and non-point sources of pollution, particularly 132 so called
hot spots, predominantly of industrial and municipal nature. 47 of these hot
spots received a priority status. The other elements basically supplement and
complement element 3. Element 1 “Policies, Laws and Regulations” calls
particularly for the requisite environmental legislation and legal framework.
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