20.06.2023 11:25
Baltic Sea Region Forum unveiled a lot of threats, but also optimism via increased cooperation
Changing security environment, safety of infrastructure and cross-border crime were discussed widely in the 15th Baltic Sea Region Forum in Turku, Finland 15th of June. It's possible to return to the event by watching the recording on YouTube.The programme consisted of speeches and three panel discussions: 1. Changing security
environment in the Northern Europe, 2. Securing and maintaining critical energy
supply and infrastructure in the Baltic Sea Region and 3. Combating
cross-border crime.
The panel themes attracted over 500 participants to registrate to listen to the panelist, half of them in person and rest online.
Not surprisingly, the opening speeches and the first panel focused strongly on Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine and Russia‘s unchanged imperialistic nature. The common opinion was that we have not yet, even after one and a half years of war, learnt to read Russia. In his virtual greetings, dissident Russian writer, Mikhail Shishkin, pointed out that Russia has not done similar purge of fascism than Germany did. He emphasized that for citizens, silence is a Russian survival strategy.
The opening speaker Artis Pabriks, Director, The Northern European Policy Center, pointed out that Russia has never admitted the crimes of the Soviet era, that there is no remorse or self-consciousness. Thus, if Russia can‘t change, and if we can‘t change Russia, we much change ourselves. According to Artis Pabriks, there are two main goals: firstly, we need to make Russians incapable to attack the Baltic Sea region countries or Ukraine and secondly, to make Russia to lose appetite to attack.
Ministerial change of ideas. Artis Pabriks, former Minister of Defence of Latvia (2019-2022) and Charles Clarke, former UK Home Secretary (2004 – 2006).
When discussing military, act like military. Chair of the Panel 1, Lieutenant Colonel Marko Palokangas giving last instructions before the panel session.
The former Advisor from the Office of the President of Ukraine, Oleksii
Arestovych stated that Russia will never acknowledge that its own actions led
to Finland and Sweden to decide to join NATO. He warns that Russian strategy
will be to concentrate its attacks to one country, use the ‘divide and win’
strategy. It will first attack NATO integrity.
Oleksii Arestovych remarks that the Russian way to read NATO restrictiveness is to think that NATO is too weak to win Russia and too indecisive to contain Russia.
Communication, linguistics and narratives
have an important role to play in the current situation. It is easy to start
talking about the Baltic Sea as the NATO Sea, but that tricks us to imagine
that the situation is solved. There is also a battle of narratives, and Russia
is doing much more to secure its narrative in the non-Western countries.
An important function of the Baltic Sea Region Forum is to provide a possibility to share and strengthen joint narratives.
In the panel II, “Securing and maintaining
critical energy supply and infrastructure” the importance of international
cooperation was emphasized by many. Building international networks among
government, academia and industry helps to create collective resilience
against hybrid attacks.
From left, Hugo Bromley, Research Fellow from University of Cambridge gave a glimpse for the deeper historical context to many of the energy security issues the region faces today. Videt R. Norng, Lieutenant Colonel from NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence, Lithuania, pointed out as the resources are limited, the countries need to decide what are their critical energy infrastructures and how to allocate resources to protect them. On the right CBE PhD, Rear Admiral Visiting Fellow from University of Reading, Chris Parry emphasized the role of underground or undersea “stealth” locations to protect critical infrastructure.
On right, Kaja Tael, Ambassador-at-Large for Climate and Energy Policy, Estonia, brought up the somewhat lacking EU perspective to the energy and infrastructure discussion in Panel II.
Panel III concentrated on cross-border crime and the need for EU to both
provide consistent new legislation and concrete financial support for member
states that have been attacked by instrumentalized migration, or migration as
a weapon. Cyber threats
can undermine economy, democracy and society, such as discouraging people from
using digital services, or compromising critical infrastructure.
Panelists acknowledged the need of different kinds of EU legislation, but that legislation on privacy causes certain problems. The question is what can be sacrificed in order to secure safety.
Permanent
Secretary from the Finnish Ministry of the Interior, Kirsi Pimiä reminded that
even though member states have networks, so do the criminals. They are
exploiting differences in legal systems, business environments etc. Shared
situational picture is important for the EU. Undersecretary from the Estonian Ministry
of Interior, Veiko Kommusaar expressed worry about the future post-war
situation with redundant weapons from Ukraine. The risk of them falling in the
hands of criminals is high and need to be dealt with somehow.
Veiko Kommusaar and Kirsi Pimiä
EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator from the Council of the Eruopean Union,
Ilkka Salmi told that the recent terrorist acts in the EU have been committed by
lone actors, who have had no formal command and control structure. This makes
the terrorists more difficult to detect, but also more difficult to cooperate,
as they happen case-by-case.
Ilkka Salmi
More information about the Forum programme and speakers can be found at the event website.
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