Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, where he was attending a European Union–Africa ministerial meeting, Sikorski was responding to questions about recent incidents in the Baltic, including damage to underwater cables.
He said even if these are accidental, the number of such events is alarmingly high.
“There is anarchy at sea linked to what are called flags of convenience, or even ships sailing with no flag at all. This has to stop,” Sikorski said.
"Ships, like airplanes, must have owners, operators, and states that take responsibility for their activities," he added.
"The Baltic is currently the most dangerous sea in the world," he told reporters. "Even if we assume that the cutting of cables and pipelines is accidental, there are simply too many of these incidents.”
Russia has been using what Western officials call a “shadow fleet”—a group of old, uninsured vessels sailing under multiple flags—to bypass sanctions on its oil exports.
These ships pose a significant risk to European Union waters, as no one can be held accountable in the event of an oil spill or similar disaster.
The West has been gradually expanding sanctions against these ships.
Sikorski warned that the environmental cost of such accidents would be enormous.
“Those responsible must be held to account: the captains, the operators, and the countries whose flags the ships sail under,” he said.
Sikorski argued that current international maritime law is inadequate. He said existing frameworks such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Copenhagen Convention allow for limited action in territorial waters, offer only minimal powers in exclusive economic zones, and virtually none in international waters, even though vital infrastructure such as cables, pipelines, and even decaying chemical weapons containers often lie in these zones.
He noted that Poland is about to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, a regional cooperation body.
“We’ve been tasked with proposing ways to regulate this issue, at least for the Baltic, which is a particularly enclosed and shallow body of water,” Sikorski said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday that a Russian ship from the so-called "shadow fleet" carried out "suspicious manoeuvres" near an undersea power cable linking Poland and Sweden earlier this week.
Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said the incident occurred on Tuesday near a cable owned by Polish grid operator PSE.
Kosiniak-Kamysz added that a patrol flight was launched in response and that the vessel had been "effectively deterred."
A special meeting is scheduled to take place on Thursday at the Maritime Operations Centre in the naval port of Gdynia, with both Tusk and Kosiniak-Kamysz expected to attend.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia would defend its ships operating in the Baltic Sea using all means available, the Reuters news agency reported.
The statement came after a recent failed attempt by Estonia to seize a Russian-bound oil tanker believed to be part of the shadow fleet evading Western sanctions, according to Reuters.
Poland’s top soldier, Gen. Wiesław Kukuła, said last week that NATO would deploy additional naval assets in the Baltic Sea after Estonia forced a suspected Russian "shadow-fleet" tanker out of its waters and a Russian fighter briefly violated NATO airspace.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP