BUND and partners petition EU to ban oil and gas extraction in the Baltic Sea

The German environmental group BUND (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland), together with international partners and the citizen initiative Lebensraum Vorpommern, has gathered about 88,000 signatures calling for a complete ban on oil and gas extraction in the Baltic Sea. The petition, aimed at the European Commission, is scheduled for submission in September and seeks to prevent further drilling projects, especially near the Polish coast opposite the island of Usedom.

The drive was sparked by recent exploratory drillings by the Canadian company Central European Petroleum (CEP) a few kilometres off Swinoujscie, which reported a potentially large oil discovery that could be the biggest in Poland since World War II. BUND argues that allowing such extraction would threaten the marine environment of the Baltic Sea and urges EU authorities to pre‑emptively prohibit any future offshore oil and gas activities in the region.