Finland’s Baltic Sea commitment remains without funding

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The final round of arm-wrestling on Finland’s budget for 2011 is near at hand. Negotiations between the Ministry of Finance and other ministries have been going on in order to define potential disagreements.
     
The Ministry of Finance was not willing to allocate money to the projects for which Finland committed itself in the international Baltic Sea Action Summit in February. At least not yet on Monday.
      Hundreds of members of the political, economic, and scientific elites from the different Baltic Sea countries attended the Summit in Helsinki, in which participation was by invitation only.
      Finland’s then Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen made a commitment contributing to the recovery of the Archipelago Sea in such a way that the sea area will be in good shape by 2020.
      This would call for, among other things, dramatic reductions in the flow of agricultural nutrients into the Archipelago Sea, the water area between Western Finland and Sweden.
     
The Ministry of the Environment had proposed that a modest sum of EUR 3 million should be allocated to these projects, but the Ministry of Finance erased the proposed appropriation from its budget draft.
      Yesterday’s talks saw no progress made on this issue.
      The funding of the so-called TEHO project (2008-2010) that has been focusing on agricultural water protection issues in Southwest Finland will no longer continue in 2011.
      The Ministry of the Environment would also have granted funds for a project aiming at monitoring the diversity of submarine species and for another for reducing the load on waterways caused by peat production in Finland.
      The EUR 3 million will next be debated in the actual budgetary talks.
      Minister of the Environment Paula Lehtomäki (Centre) says that the appropriation is ”the number one among the pending issues”.
      However, Lehtomäki points out that funding for various water protection projects is being paid under many other budget sections. She also points out that no specific sums of money were discussed in the Baltic Sea Action Summit in February. The purpose of the summit was just to gather commitments to take action. The list of commitments is to progress in many ways.
     
There is even another disagreement between the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Finance. That argument is related to the funding needed next year for waste water counselling in remote rural areas.
      The counselling has already been launched this year, but the Ministry of Finance wiped off some of the funding in its 2011 budget proposal. The same happened to the funding required for the acquisition of oil spill booms.
      Moreover, the setting up of a national oil spill prevention centre at Tolkkinen near Porvoo that has been pending for seven years will most likely not be carried out, even though the plan has been recorded in the government’s programme.
      When it comes to all oil spill prevention projects, the experts in the branch do not regard such a national centre as very significant in the order of importance.
     
The final wrangling on next year’s budget will take place in the government’s budgetary talks, to be held on august 19th and 20th.
      Minister of Transport Anu Vehviläinen (Centre) is trying to get an additional sum of EUR 35 million for renovations to the section of rail track between Seinäjoki and Oulu, in addition to the EUR 5 million that the Ministry of Finance has already promised to allocate.
      Furthermore, MInister of Employment and the Economy Mauri Pekkarinen (Centre) is trying to squeeze additional funding for the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.
      The Finnish Minister for Foreign Trade and Development, Paavo Väyrynen (Centre) is for his part prepared to defend the funding promised for the cooperation with neighbouring regions in Russia. In its budget proposal, the Ministry of Finance has axed one-third of these funds.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Baltic Sea commitments contain something old, something new, and something borrowed (9.2.2010)
  Baltic Sea Action Summit to convene in Helsinki on Wednesday (8.2.2010)

Links:
  TEHO Project

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