Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods.
I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two issues: How the Baltic Sea countries are looking into protecting undersea infrastructure and the EU's new attempt to sanction illegal migration.
Briefing #1: Protecting The Infrastructure In The Baltic Sea
What You Need To Know: In the past 18 months there have been numerous incidents in the Baltic Sea in which telecom and electricity cables, as well as gas pipelines, have been damaged. While attribution has often proved tricky and some of the incidents could have been accidents, some European officials have pointed fingers at Russia's so-called shadow fleet. This refers to approximately 350 vessels of opaque ownership that are believed to evade Western sanctions on Russian oil by transporting around 80 percent of the supply, with nearly 50 percent departing from Russian Baltic Sea ports.
The European Union has imposed measures on half of these vessels by barring them from calling at EU ports or getting serviced in any way by EU companies. But the EU countries around the Baltic Sea in January decided to create a group of experts to investigate various legal avenues to prevent future incidents involving underwater infrastructure.
Deep Background: The coastal states of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden have near total control of their territorial waters, which stretch 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from all of their respective Baltic coasts. But it isn't there that the incidents have happened. They have been happening in the Baltic states' "exclusive economic zones," areas, which stretch as far as 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) out to sea.
In this zone, the coastal states have rights below the surface of the sea, for the exploration of marine resources, for example, but the surface waters are international waters. And in international waters it is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that rules supreme -- notably the idea of freedom of navigation.
This means that it's the ship's flag, meaning where it is officially registered, that determines which state has legal authority over the vessel. Crucially, the legal authority here means that a country would have the right to stop or board a suspicious vessel.
Drilling Down
- As one European diplomat familiar with maritime law explained to me, "So far, it has been that freedom of navigation is almost absolute; that is how states have looked at it." However, they quickly added, "But [that] does not entail the right to break critical infrastructure on your way." This very issue -- how freedom of navigation intersects with the rights of coastal states to apprehend suspicious vessels -- is precisely what Nordic-Baltic experts are now working to address.
- Legal experts have already begun a series of meetings to establish a common understanding of what, if anything, can be done beyond the political decision to simply increase the presence of military vessels in the hope of preventing future incidents.
- The plan is to host a major conference in early April, bringing together officials from the Foreign, Defense, and Interior ministries of all EU and NATO countries to examine the issue from various angles.
- All options are tricky as there will be global knock-on effects. Diplomats I have spoken to from within the EU have pointed out that however the Nordic-Baltic countries react, they need to be aware that European vessels in other seas could be handled in a similar way (i.e. being preemptively stopped and searched). Big maritime nations like Denmark and Greece are keen to avoid extra hurdles elsewhere -- for example, in the busy South China Sea.
- It's unlikely some of the more far-fetched ideas knocking around, such as closing the Baltic Sea for ships from certain states, will fly. Not only would it be devastating for commerce and cumbersome and costly to actually carry out, it would also be interpreted as an act of aggression against the countries to which the vessels belonged and also Russia.
- One crucial aspect here is if states will have the authority to forcefully board a vessel and under what circumstances. Can it be done preemptively or only after an incident? So far, boarding a vessel has depended on the particular state authorities' cooperation with the captain on a particular ship.
- Diplomats have told me they are exploring whether the Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables -- a multilateral treaty signed in 1884 that criminalizes damage to submarine communication cables -- could be applied in this context.
- What about acting before an incident occurs? Lawmakers in the EU could explore legislation that would permit states to board and potentially seize vessels suspected of dragging their anchors, particularly as this method is believed to have been used to cause damage on the Baltic seabed.
- Using anti-piracy laws could be another possibility, but legally it would require something of a leap of faith, as piracy normally is regarded as one ship attacking another, not undersea cables.
- The idea of forcing ships entering the Baltic Sea to be properly insured by companies, say in the EU, could be a solution. Many boats accused of damaging undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea recently have been in poor condition, and it is here that environmental protection laws could come into the picture, as such unseaworthy vessels can cause oil spills.
- The question remains how all this would be policed and whether it could create an international flashpoint if coastal guards from a Baltic Sea country preemptively boarded a ship in international waters.
Briefing #2: A New EU Proposal To Tackle Illegal Migration
What You Need To Know: Poland has brought back on the table a proposal that would allow the EU to sanction transport operators the bloc deems to have facilitated or engaged in "trafficking in people or smuggling of migrants in relation to illegal entry into the EU." The regulation, if adopted, would target companies involved in air, sea, inland waterways, rail, and road transport, completely cutting them off from the EU market for an entire year.
The regulation was first tabled by the European Commission in November 2021, when mainly non-European migrants were flown by Belarus and Russia and taken to the borders of Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. That year, Warsaw registered around 40,000 attempts to illegally cross the border and the EU responded by slapping sanctions on a number of Belarusian border guards, the country's state carrier Belavia, and the Syrian Cham Wings Airlines.
The regulation, however, was not adopted at the time. This was partly due to the effectiveness of Brussels' measures, which included sanctions, diplomatic efforts to prevent travel from third countries like Iraq and Syria, and the strengthening of EU border controls, including the construction of physical barriers. The number of crossing attempts into Poland in 2022 dropped to 15,000, and several EU countries still thought at the time that the measures were too drastic.
Deep Background: With Poland currently holding the rotating six-month presidency of the Council of the EU, the proposal is back on the agenda, with its backers hoping something will be agreed by the summer. Warsaw has made security, including the instrumentalization of migrants, one of its top priorities, and with the bloc turning increasingly populist and anti-migration, there is a chance something could be agreed.
Poland has also pointed out there has been increasing pressure on its eastern border with 30,500 attempts to cross it last year. In two documents Poland has circulated among other EU member states and seen by RFE/RL, Warsaw is not shy about naming a culprit: "More than 90 [percent] of migrants crossing the Polish-Belarusian border illegally have a Russian visa, confirming the trend of the migrants entering Belarus mainly through Russia with a student or tourist visa issued in the countries of origin." Warsaw also notes that citizens from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Syria, and Yemen reach Russia and later Belarus largely via Turkey or the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).
Drilling Down
- The question is how the EU will approach this issue. The bloc is keen to avoid targeting Turkey, which is still an EU candidate country, or a country such as the U.A.E., with which many EU member states have strong economical and political ties.
- To potentially smooth the passage of the new measures, Warsaw is first outlining preventive steps that can already be taken. One of the Polish papers noted that "it would like to explore the possibility of deploying liaison officers, particularly in key transit countries on the eastern land route." The paper notes that a liaison officer at Istanbul airport "would facilitate closer cooperation with Turkish authorities in preventing illegal migration and detecting potential cases of migrant instrumentalization."
- The same document also states: "Currently, the U.A.E. is not considered a key country in the external dimension of migration, although they are one of the key transit points for migrants traveling to the EU. Establishing closer cooperation, including intelligence sharing and joint actions against smuggling and trafficking networks, would significantly impact the flow of irregular migration through this route."
- There are other ways the bloc could tackle the issue; for example, more targeted sanctions on Russian and Belarusian officials involved in ferrying migrants to the EU borders. Another measure being considered by EU states along the eastern border is to follow Finland's lead in temporarily suspending the right to asylum under emergency legislation aimed at countering hybrid threats.
- EU diplomats with knowledge of the proposed regulation have told me that, if it is adopted, it should be seen as "a last resort," a potential stick Brussels can wield if nothing else works. Putting the regulation back on the table is a way the EU can signal to countries around the world that the route into the EU is being shut down.
Looking Ahead
Two key visits this week: French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are both visiting Washington. Both leaders are meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump to try and persuade him to include European nations in talks on the Russia-Ukraine war.
That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on X @RikardJozwiak, or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.
Until next time,
Rikard Jozwiak
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