Plotting a new course

Last week industry experts and politicians met in Sopot for a conference on creating a positive image of the maritime industry. The conference was a follow-up to a green paper published by the European Commission last year on reviving the EU maritime economy.

Prior to the conference, the Minister of Maritime Economy, Rafał Wiechecki, and the Chairman of the EU's Maritime Policy Task Force, John Richardson, discussed Poland's place in the process. The Polish Minister thinks that Poland has the best maritime education in the European Union.

"We want maritime education to be our specialization in the EU," Wiechecki said. He noted that Poland has two maritime universities (in Szczecin and Gdynia) - with over 10,000 students, combined - as well as six maritime high schools. Richardson hopes that the Polish academies will join a planned network of European maritime universities.

More than 155,000 Poles work in the maritime economy. Of this figure, Minister Wiechecki said that there are 5,000 sailors employed in Poland and another 30,000 Polish sailors work in the EU. Richardson pointed out the often-overlooked fact that Poland has jurisdiction over a quarter of the Baltic Sea. Furthermore, he thinks Poland could make use of its coastline for tourism. "Climate change could be a major boost to the tourism industry at the Baltic coast," he said.