HELCOM Ministerial Declaration does not declare necessity to announce NECA status of Baltic Sea from 2016
HELCOM Ministerial Declaration adopted upon the results of the 2013 Ministerial Meeting of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) held in Copenhagen (Denmark) on October 3, 2013 does not declare the necessity to announce NOx Emission Control Area (NECA) status of the Baltic Sea from 2016. It didn’t consider the related document either.
The Declaration states that due to the need for further technical consultations amongst some of the Contracting Parties as regards to the availability of technology to implement the Tier III NOx emission standards under MARPOL Annex VI, the application on the Baltic Sea NECA has not yet been submitted to IMO. Besides, the Declaration states that the meeting members support the idea of a designation of NOx Emission Control Area in other sea areas, particularly the neighbouring areas as larger geographic coverage of NECA would bring greater environmental benefits.
During the ministerial meeting, the HELCOM states, especially Denmark, Finland and Germany, insisted on facilitation of the document submission and on fixing the terms in HELCOM Ministerial Declaration.
Russian delegation consistently opposed the inclusion into the declaration of fixed terms for submission of HELCOM countries' joint document to IMO and called attention to absence of practically proved efficient technologies required to implement the Tier III NOx emission standards. This dedicated and tough position of the Russian delegation resulted in the absence of the mentioned terms in 2013 HELCOM Ministerial Declaration.
According to the MARPOL Convention, the NECA status requires that all vessels built from January 1, 2016 onwards and operated in the area should be equipped with diesel installations meeting the Tier III standards. The Russian Federation upholds the position that it is necessary to postpone the discussion of getting the Baltic Sea approved as a NECA zone until more improved technologies and infrastructure appear. This position was declared at HELCOM conference in Helsinki in March 2013 and supported by the majority of countries at the 65th session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in May 2013.
The session was attended by the Environment Ministers of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Sweden as well as high officials of Germany, Poland and Europe and representatives of 12 international governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Russian delegation was headed by Nuritdin Inamov, Director of the Department of international cooperation of RF Ministry of Natural Resources.
