Opening Remarks by Commissioner Kadis at the third edition of “Our Baltic Conference”

Honourable Ministers, Members of the European Parliament, Executive Secretary of HELCOM, esteemed Chairs, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased that we have come together for the third edition of Our Baltic conference.

Five years have passed since the first time when the Member States of the Baltic Sea and the Commission discussed how to improve the state of the Baltic Sea. And two years have gone since the second edition, which focussed on  measures to tackle unexploded ammunitions.

However, instead of seeing an improvement we rather see a further deterioration of the Baltic Sea ecosystem. This brings further declining fish stocks and negatively affects our fishers and our local communities in the Baltic Sea. We face substantial challenges, as several stocks have collapsed, with others, like Bothnian and central herring, and sprat, becoming more and more fragile.

What we are witnessing is not a crisis caused by a single factor, nor one that can be solved by a single measure. The decline of our unique ecosystem is the result of multiple, interconnected pressures – climate change, eutrophication, overfishing hidden by misreporting, habitat destruction and pollution. Each of these factors exacerbates the others, creating a cycle of degradation that threatens marine life, coastal communities, and entire industries.

To break this cycle, we need more than isolated interventions – we need a comprehensive approach with coordinated action across sectors and across borders.

Todays meeting, which brings together the Ministers of Agriculture, Fisheries, and the Environment of the Member States around the Baltic Sea, along with representatives of the European Parliament and the scientific community, sends the message that this is the holistic approach we want to follow. After all, this approach is compatible with the European Ocean Pact, which aims to bring science, policy, and practice together to build a comprehensive strategy that delivers real results.

We have the right frameworks to act – Jessika will mention the EU environmental legislation we have and that this needs to be better implemented. And on our fisheries side, we too have the right tools; we have the Baltic Sea multiannual plan, the CFP Regulation, the fisheries control Regulation, but they must be fully implemented and enforced.

In the recent years we have been managing a crisis, and we have all seen what happens when we lose one fish stock after the other: first eastern cod, then western cod, then we closed all salmon fishing in the south and in the open waters of the Baltic Sea. And now our national scientific institutes who work together in ICES tell us that the pelagic stocks are also fragile: Bothnian herring is at the third lowest biomass level ever recorded; sprat is at the lowest biomass level since 1990 and relies on only one single year class and ICES warns of the uncertainty with this. Losing the cod stocks was already bad, and losing any of the pelagic stocks would be catastrophic.

And I am anticipating that the one or the other Member State may say that the Commission is not respecting the ICES advice, because we proposed fish quotas at a lower level. Here I find it important to clear up from the outset a misconception that might induce misleading conclusions.

First, the ICES advice is not a target, it is a maximum quantity. It is not correct to consider that a TAC which is below this quantity is not respecting the ICES advice.

Second, the ICES advice has the headline figures with the ranges for the TACs. And then ICES gives important additional elements in other sections of the advice. These sections have telling titles such as “quality of the advice” and “issues relevant for the advice”.

If there is a sea basin where these additional elements are crucial, it is the Baltic Sea. If they were not important, ICES would not include them in its advice.

The central question is – how much risk are we willing to take? For the Commission proposal for fishing opportunities for 2026, the starting point has been that the Baltic Sea ecosystem is not in a good state. This alone calls for increased caution because fragile fish stocks are far less likely to recover in an ecosystem that is not intact, than in a healthy ecosystem. For several stocks ICES mentions important additional considerations, notably the uncertainty on the recruitment. These are the reasons why the Commission concluded that for certain stocks the TACs should be fixed at prudent levels for 2026. Our aim was to avoid risking the fragile recovery of the stocks let alone their possible collapse.

Looking at the bigger picture we need to get out of this vicious circle of managing the downturn of one fish stock after the other, because fisheries are an important part of the Baltic Sea blue economy. We owe this to our citizens living around the Baltic Sea and to our fishers.

And I know that your administrations also attended the ICES Baltic Sea Science Conference on the 17^th of September, where we concluded together with ICES that in light of the fish stocks losing productivity and resilience given the multiple pressures in the Baltic Sea, we need more than just a single species advice. We need an ecosystem-based approach to managing our fisheries so that we accelerate recovery.

And we need a strengthened action towards your national scientific institutes so that we enable them to have all the finances and the staffing they need to work on not only how much we can fish in the next year but also how we fish with less impact, or how much we can fish the coming years, thus providing the much desired predictability to our fishers.

In conclusion, the challenges we face in safeguarding the Baltic Seas ecosystem are both profound and interconnected. Yet, with these challenges come opportunities for transformative change.

I am hopeful that this ministerial meeting will lead to stronger and more coordinated actions. Let us ensure that our policies and measures are not only adopted but fully implemented and enforced to reverse the current decline and build a sustainable future for our marine environments, fishers, and coastal communities.

I am hopeful that todays conference will lead to the agreement of concrete actions, the implementation of which will have a concrete impact on the future of the Baltic.

I want to thank you in advance for your dedication and active participation in shaping the path forward.

Together, we can accomplish the crucial task of restoring and preserving the Baltic Sea for generations to come.