The European Commission is organising the 2^nd edition of the Our Baltic Conference in Palanga (Lithuania) on 29 September 2023. This high-level event will bring together ministers from the 8 EU countries surrounding the Baltic Sea (Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland and Sweden).

Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius and ministers will look at what has been achieved since the first Our Baltic Conference in 2020EN•••, and what still needs to be done.

There will be a special focus on unexploded munitions from World Wars. Some 300 000 tonnes of unexploded munitions still lie at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, causing pollution and preventing the development of economic activities at sea.

This conference will be an opportunity to discuss, collaborate and agree on a joint action to address the current challenges.

The main topics will be

• environment & fisheries – progress made on the actions announced in the Ministerial Declaration of the 2020 Our Baltic conference
• economic activities linked to the sea (‘blue economy’) – finding ways to allow activities at sea to flourish (e.g. offshore renewable energy, aquaculture, bioeconomy, etc.)
• unexploded munition