Introduction
The environmental governance and regulation in the Baltic Sea region consists of many layers and includes regulatory approaches, institutions and actors in a structure that is continuously developing. While the Helsinki convention is a binding agreement, to which it its Parties must comply, there is flexibility and discretion in how exactly to implement it. Self-reporting by the Parties is used by HELCOM to monitor compliance, as according to art 16(1) there is an obligation to report on measures taken and their effectiveness. Still, only few HELCOM reports can be found which consider the extent to which measures required have been implemented as expected – and none that ask why.
Governance institutions
The building of capacity at national and local authorities to deliver on the agreed measures has received financial support in numerous projects over the years. While pollution loads are monitored and reported, there is no distinct reporting on the capacity of national authorities and governance institutions to deliver on their HELCOM commitments. Assessments of governance institutions and their capacity are provided at a more general level by OECD’s Environmental Performance Reviews and the European Union’s Environmental Implementation Reviews. Still, these reviews do not address nutrient management issues in detail. The BONUS TOOLS2SEA project has been tasked to synthesize existing knowledge about governance institutions and their capacity for nutrient management of the nine littoral states to the Baltic Sea (DE, DK, SE, FI, EE, LV, LT, PL and RU). Linkages between governance structures, socio‐cultural regulatory traditions, attitudes and human and organisational behavior influence the capacity to manage nutrient reductions. Governance institutions are analyzed in a decomposition of the institutional contexts into their component parts as a prelude to understanding how these parts affect each other and how institutions and cross‐sectoral linkages shape outcomes. The analysis proceeds from a description of the nutrient management system in each country, which comprises formal institutions such as government agencies, knowledge providers, bridging organisations, legal principles, stakeholder associations as well as informal institutions such as national patterns of behavior, customs and values.
Key points
The nine BSR countries feature highly different administrative systems, shaped by institutional developments over the course of history. Some countries have opted for a decentralized approach with responsibilities and resources vested with local authorities, while others have opted for a deconcentrated approach, with responsibilities vested with local-level subsidiaries of national authorities. In some countries there is a tradition for close consultations with the affected interest groups, in casu farmers, who have organized themselves accordingly, while in other countries there is more of a top-down approach towards organized interests, that in turn appear fragmented and lacking the abilities to engage in dialogue with government about modes of implementation. Enforcement and compliance checking is in most BSR countries vested to the lowest administrative level, i.e. municipalities, which however have very different access to the required expertise and resources for fulfilling their responsibilities.
https://projects.au.dk/bonus_tools2sea/
