Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom has taken over the role of Lead Policy Area Coordinator in the Policy Area Ship. The National Coordinators Group appointed Finland as a new Lead PAC starting from 1 January 2022. Traficom replaced Danish Maritime Authority that withdrew from the PAC role. As a result of the DMA´s previous work, this policy area is already well established that enables a smooth transmission of the associated tasks.

Traficom has been a Co-PAC in PA Safe for several years. Therefore, the new role in PA Ship was easy for the agency to accept.    

- The activities of PA Safe and PA Ship are also strongly interlinked, both focus on maritime environment and shipping activities around the Baltic Sea region. We have already worked closely together on themes like digitalization, autonomous shipping and green transitioning. All of these areas require strong cross-border cooperation and macro-regional strategy provides a natural forum for working together, says the PA coordinator Valtteri Laine from Traficom.

In the future, the aim of PA Ship is to further strengthen the maritime cooperation across the EU Baltic Sea member stages, HELCOM and different macro-regional strategies to achieve the ambitious goals of the Fit for 55 package. Due to the war in Ukraine, all cooperation in this context with the Russian Federation has now been terminated. That is why it is out most important that all EU countries do their best and work together to reduce greenhouse gases and other marine pollutions for the sake of next generations.