Last week Minister of Economic Affairs of the German State of Brandenburg Daniel Keller awarded a €18.4 million funding decision for the development of the Transformation and Service Center (TRAFO) in Schwedt (Oder) The building is the first building block of the Innovation Campus that will be created in Schwedt (Oder) The funding decision was presented to Mayor Annekathrin Hoppe in the presence of Nicolas Gibert-Morin The event took place at the “Uckermärkische Bühnen” and served as a platform to discuss EU Cohesion Policy’s response to the structural challenges faced by the region Addressing key regional challenges with the EU’s Cohesion Policy is confronted with major challenges that risk exacerbating disparities between regions These include globalisation and the technological transition the demographic transition and the transition to a climate-neutral economy Gibert-Morin invited the region to turn these challenges into opportunities through diversification into future-proof industries and stressed that the European Commission provides financial support through the Just Transition Fund He explained that the Commission is actively promoting Europe's competitiveness through the recently adopted Competitiveness Compass supporting the transition to a climate-neutral economy with the upcoming Clean Industrial Deal TRAFO: A Strategic EU Investment in Uckermark The TRAFO centre is the first major milestone of the Innovation Campus Located at the Central Bus Station (ZOB) in Schwedt/Oder the centre will become a hub for businesses fostering innovation and collaboration in the transformation process The TRAFO will be fully operational by 2027 with additional JTF-backed elements such as a real-world laboratory and the DemoHub following in subsequent years Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker An algal bloom caused mass deaths of fish and other animals in the river Oder in Germany and Poland in 2022 and scientists warn there is a high risk of a second catastrophe By Madeleine Cuff An algal bloom that killed hundreds of thousands of fish in the river Oder between Germany and Poland in 2022 could reappear this summer with devastating consequences About 360 tonnes of dead fish were hauled from the Oder which runs for 840 kilometres along the German-Polish border between July and August last year following a huge bloom of the toxic alga Prymnesium parvum The European Commission described it as “one of the largest ecological disasters in recent European river history” Prymnesium parvum is usually found in the brackish waters of estuaries Scientists are unsure how it made its way to the Gliwice canal in Poland a spur of the Oder that lies hundreds of kilometres from the coast and where the bloom is thought to have originated a fresh bloom could appear in the Oder or nearby rivers if conditions are right “That’s one of the main concerns that we have: that it reoccurs in this river, but also that it could spread to other polluted rivers,” says Gary Free at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), which has published a study into the 2022 fish deaths on the Oder The river’s poor water quality provided an “ideal soup” for Prymnesium parvum to bloom Due to discharges from agriculture and wastewater sites the Oder was already suffering from excess levels of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients that make it possible for algal blooms to develop The problem was compounded by successive heatwaves and a long drought during July and August 2022 which depleted water levels throughout the river and concentrated pollution Discharges of salty wastewater from industrial sites near the Gliwice canal then caused a surge in the river’s salt levels It is unclear whether the discharges were illegal or within the permissions granted under permits Polish records suggest at least 34 facilities in the Oder catchment have a licence to discharge salty waste The ecological damage was worsened by poor communication between the German and Polish authorities with “late and incomplete” information exchange stalling response efforts A spokesperson for Germany’s environment ministry said in a statement authorities were only notified about the incident on 11 August after fish had already washed up dead downstream inside the country’s borders It said the international alert system for pollution incidents was being revised it shall be even clearer that also in events like for instance a fish die-off a transboundary and timely warning shall be released.” Polish Waters the national water management authority for Poland Alongside the huge numbers of fish that were killed in the event, populations of invertebrates such as mussels and snails were also severely impacted, says Dietrich Borchardt at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany These filter-feeders usually help to control algal blooms so the drop in their numbers leaves the river more susceptible to another bloom this summer and in future years “Because of the loss of invertebrate life – which is not that visible compared to the fish but which definitely is there – I think there is a significant likelihood that the river now is in a much more vulnerable condition compared to spring last year,” says Borchardt Read more: Why rivers are important for everything from biodiversity to wellbeing A further bloom could devastate the river’s ecology, as research suggests fish stocks in the river have already fallen by half since the first incident according to research by the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany Jan Köhler at the institute has just started research investigating the impact Prymnesium parvum has on the survival and efficiency of filter-feeders like mussels He is also concerned about more blooms of the alga “We are afraid that the reduction in filtration activity will favour future mass developments of Prymnesium,” he says The Oder needs to go into “intensive care” to prevent further blooms with urgent work required to tackle industrial pollution along the river and reduce nutrient loads authorities should be able to pause industrial discharges of salty waste when the threat of an algal bloom is high Others believe a wholesale change in the rules governing industrial discharges will be necessary to protect river health in the future especially as European summers become hotter and drier under climate change Discharge licences need to be rewritten with the impacts of climate change in mind are sufficient under conditions of climate change,” he says Reference: JRC Publications Repository, DOI: 10.2760/067386 A German-Polish fight over a large pollution incident that killed thousands of fish in the Oder River is turning toxic.  The two countries were initially meant to unveil a joint report Friday analyzing what happened this summer on the river that in part flows along their mutual border Instead, Warsaw and Berlin each issued their own studies — further souring already tense Polish-German relations. In non-fish issues, Poland wants restitution for Germany's bloody occupation of Poland during the war and resents Germany's perceived reluctance to send more weapons to Ukraine while Germany is worried at the erosion of rule of law in Poland “There were already a lot of conflicts between the Polish and the German side and what happened at the Oder this summer didn’t improve things,” said Hannah Neumann a German Green MEP who traveled to the Oder in August a type of golden algae whose bloom can emit toxins lethal to fish and shellfish but is not harmful to humans. But they failed to agree on how much fault rests with humans German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke on Friday stressed that the “severe environmental disaster” was “caused by human activity.”  According to the German report: “The most probable cause of the fish kill in the Oder River is a sudden increase in salinity led to a massive increase in a brackish water alga that is toxic to fish.”  Because the cause is thought to have originated on the Polish section of the river German experts had to rely on data from Poland but due to a "lack of available information” they said they could not determine what caused the “unnaturally high salinity.” Poland didn’t provide Germany with all necessary information and “the Polish side is annoyed about what they consider as finger-pointing from the German side," said Neumann The authors of the Polish report named a combination of natural and human factors and argued they were unsure of the amount of polluted water discharged into the river water discharges can be legal under conditions set by so-called water permits.  “An analysis of the permits is underway but so far we haven’t found any problems with them from a legal standpoint,” said Andrzej Szweda-Lewandowski head of the Polish General Directorate of Environmental Protection at a presentation of the report's main findings on Thursday The full report is due to be released late Friday ​​“It was surprising to hear that the state has no problem with discharges of polluted water into the Oder as long as they are in line with water permits It looked as if the Polish people were just told that the river was polluted fully legally,” said Piotr Nieznański from WWF’s Polish office.  The two countries are also at loggerheads over expansion plans for the river meant to allow for more barge traffic.  Germany has not yet started to deepen or widen the river Lemke on Friday reiterated her concerns about the plans arguing that the “expansion measures on the Oder River stand in the way of successful regeneration," and said she wants to work with her Polish counterpart Anna Moskwa "to agree on joint next steps.” Poland insists that Germany should help carry out the 2015 plan to expand infrastructure on the river “The modernization of the Oder via construction of weirs and a container terminal is our priority. No step back,” Deputy Infrastructure Minister Marek Gróbarczyk said in late August This week's tit-for-tat reports aren't helping to figure out how to fix the river The failure to produce a joint report proves that Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party “is not able to overcome its aversion to our western neighbors and does not care about finding [a] solution,” said Łukasz Kohut a Polish MEP with the Socialists & Democrats.  The current relationship does not seem “like a trusting reasonable collaboration for the best possible future of the river," said Neumann.  The one-stop-shop solution for policy professionals fusing the depth of POLITICO journalism with the power of technology Manufacturers seek an off-ramp as clock counts down to final vote on duties by member countries in October French President Macron has shrugged off concerns over Serbia’s ties with Russia to seal lucrative deals on fighter jets and nuclear energy