18
May
2026
Watch
The multiannual plan for the Baltic Sea and ways forward (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner. When we look at the ocean, it looks so beautiful. The beautiful blue surface. But if you dare to look below the sea level, then it is a frightening sight and one of the places we see it most clearly, it is in the Baltic Sea. We are seeing something close to a collapse of an ecosystem because we have chosen to smash our ocean with nitrogen, with chemicals, with plastic and with overfishing. And then it is in the ocean that we most clearly see the climate crisis that is booming out there with rising temperatures, thus changing the ecosystem and which animals there are. I remember when I was younger, and it wasn't a hundred years ago, maybe up there soon, but there you pulled a fish out of the sea because there were endless resources. There's no more. There are not many left, and those who are are are sucked up by trawls running across the Baltic Sea instead of leaving it to the few gentle fishermen who are along the coast. Our sea is in crisis, and what we see in the Baltic Sea, we will see in many places, if we do not stop running business as usual, but actually take responsibility for us. Thank you.