Implementation of the North European Gas Pipeline Project
A basic agreement on the construction of the North European Gas Pipeline (NEGP) through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany was signed on 8 September 2005. Due to the scale of the construction, the project requires Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Under the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo, 1991), Finland is both a Party of Origin and an Affected Party in the project as a section of the gas pipeline will cross Finland’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). So far the extent of the possible EIA related to the construction and maintenance of the pipeline remains unclear. As the bulk of relevant sediment, macrozoobenthos and water data collected by Finnish researchers in offshore areas of the Gulf of Finland is held by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and the Finnish Institute of Marine Research (FIMR) and at least in part still remains in the research and preparation stage, the two research institutes, together with the Finnish nvironment Institute (SYKE), established a working group aiming at:
• performing an inventory of the existence and availability of data required for the EIA process in Finland;
• assessing the need for new experimental data to ensure the reliability of the EIA;
• proposing EIA topics to ensure its reliability.
Download (2006) (21 pages; 3.08 MB PDF)
