SWEDEN is joining Estonia and Finland in stepping up inspections of so-called shadow fleet ships passing through the Baltic, with new regulations set to enter into force next month.

From July 1, the Swedish Coast Guard will start collecting insurance information from vessels that pass through Swedish territorial waters or the economic zone, not just those that call at a port.

“We are seeing more and more problematic events in the Baltic Sea and this requires us not only to hope for the best, but also to plan for the worst,” said Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in a statement following the formalisation of the new rules.

While the new regulations are effectively a formalisation of the European Commission’s April directive requiring all vessels, including those merely passing through EU waters without entering an EU port, provide insurance information, they are also a statement of intent from Sweden to crack down on perceived shadow fleet security and safety concerns.

“The shadow fleet is circumventing international rules and threatening safety,” said Minister of Justice Gunnar Strömmer.

“It is absolutely crucial that more ships are inspected,” he said.

Sweden has been patrolling Baltic shipping lanes and monitoring shadow fleet transits, but so far has only inspected ships calling in its ports.

The government has not confirmed how it plans to respond in the event that shadow fleet ships refuse to engage with the coastguard’s requests for documentation.

Baltic naval powers are on high alert after Russia indicated that it would start escorting shadow tankers through the Gulf of Finland if Nato states continued to interrupt ship transits with inspections.

Following two separate Russian incursions into both Finnish and Estonian airspace in recent weeks in defence of shadow fleet tanker transits, Finland’s Minister of Defence Antti Häkkänen last week confirmed that Russian naval vessels have already been deployed to escort some tankers, but statements from Moscow suggest that an escalation is now likely.

Russia’s UN Security Council representative Vasily Nebenzya recently labelled the actions of Baltic littoral states interrupting tankers transits to check documentation as akin to piracy.

A statement from the Kremlin, meanwhile, said that Russia was ready to use “all means” at its disposal in future to respond to such incidents.