19 July (BNS)

On Thursday the government reviewed the draft of an Estonian-Latvian agreement on co-operation in combating maritime pollution, which lays the groundwork for helping each other in the event of pollution at sea, and gave Foreign Minister Urmas Paet powers to sign the accord.

Considering Estonia's and Latvia's limited pollution-combating resource, the co-operation agreement is an important step in ensuring environmental safety in the Baltic Sea and increasing the countries' pollution-fighting capability, spokespeople for the government told BNS.

The parties responsible for the implementation of the accord are the Police and Border Guard Board in Estonia and the Navy in Latvia, who assume the obligation to inform each other about all pollution cases in their area of responsibility which may affect the interests of the other party.

Under the agreement, response to a request for assistance has to be made as quickly as possible and the resources indicated in the request made available in accordance with possibility. As a rule, all costs incurred in connection with the rendering of help will be covered by the party which sent the request. Estonia has concluded a similar agreement with Finland.