Currently around 90% of imports to Finland come via sea. A moratorium for ports would put us in a very challenging position, and possibly lead to more environmental and climate impact. Less deliveries by sea would most likely lead to more deliveries by air which would be an even worse option and go against our work of trying to move towards more sustainable transport.
Expanding Finland’s transport connectivity via land is a very challenging question. As you know, expanding transport by land through our Eastern neighbour, Russia, is not a feasible option right now or in the future for security reasons. Our other land borders are up North with Sweden and Norway. While an expanded railway connection to the North theoretically could happen, its consequences for the nature and biodiversity, as well as the rights and livelihoods of the Sami indigenous people would be significant. The nature and biodiversity up North are at a larger risk than in many other places as the average temperature is increasing at twice the space as the global average due to the climate crisis. This expansion to the North would also likely increase marine traffic to the ports in Northern Norway and therefore increase the traffic in the sensitive Arctic sea. This would go against the aims of our policies.
I am providing this as a context why a complete moratorium would be a challenge for us and possibly lead to unintended harmful impact on nature in our Northern and geographically remote context. This is why we are proposing the following amendment which is not fully removing the point as we understand where you are coming from. We hope that this would give the flexibility to prevent such moratorium leading to larger environmental damage in one of the most sensitive and at-risk areas.