Sweden Tightens Controls on Baltic Shipping Targeting Shadow Fleet

The Swedish government announced starting July 1 it will be enforcing new rules on ships that pass through Swedish territorial waters or the economic zone – not just those that call at a port. It joins others including Estonia, Finland, and the European Union which also introduced new monitoring efforts including checking insurance documentation for vessels sailing through the Baltic.

“We see more and more problematic events in the Baltic Sea and it requires that we not only hope for the best, but also plan for the worst,” said Ulf Kristersson, Prime Minister of Sweden, in a posting on social media. “Now we have made an important decision to protect the Baltic Sea from the Russian shadow fleet… Security can't wait.”

According to the government, the new regulation that it adopted aims to combat the shadow fleet and thereby improve maritime safety and environmental protection. The Swedish Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration are being tasked with collecting insurance information from ships that pass through Swedish territorial waters or the economic zone regardless if they are scheduled to make a port call in Sweden.

“We are now increasing surveillance in the Baltic Sea,” said Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer. He pointed to the shadow fleet circumventing international rules and threatening safety.

Sweden’s action follows the European Commission which in April adopted a requirement that all vessels, including those merely passing through EU waters without entering an EU port, provide insurance information.

Efforts to check documentation and insurance information have led to increased tensions in the Baltic. Estonia’s effort at stopping a tanker it suspected of operating without a legitimate registry led to a brief showdown that included a Russian warplane making an unauthorized entry into Estonian airspace. Similarly, Finland has recently reported that a Russian warplane entered its airspace while Finland’s Defense Minister said the country would continue its efforts to monitor the movement of shadow fleet tankers in the Gulf of Finland.

The EU in particular has continued to apply pressure on the shadow fleet. It has now sanctioned over 300 tankers while there has been talk of further actions aimed at Russia’s oil trade.

Russia’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia referred to the actions as “Baltic pirates” and their EU “cheerleaders,” during a speech to the UN Security Council. He said the “inappropriate behavior of EU countries sets a very dangerous precedent.”

The Russian Navy has reportedly begun escorting some shadow fleet tankers on their passage away from the oil terminals and into the Baltic.