A rapid increase in maritime traffic together with challenging navigation conditions and a vulnerable
ecosystem has evoked calls for improving maritime safety in the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Sea. It is
suggested that these improvements will be the result of adopting a regionally effective proactive approach
to safety policy formulation and management. A proactive approach is grounded on a formal
process of identifying, assessing and evaluating accident risks, and adjusting policies or management
practices before accidents happen. Currently, maritime safety is globally regulated by internationally
agreed prescriptive rules, which are usually revised in reaction to accidents. The proactive Formal Safety
Assessment (FSA) is applied to risks common to a ship type or to a particular hazard, when deemed
necessary, whereas regional FSA applications are rare. An extensive literature review was conducted in
order to examine the opportunities for developing a framework for the GoF for handling regional risks at
regional level. Best practices were sought from nuclear safety management and fisheries management,
and from a particular case related to maritime risk management. A regional approach that sees maritime
safety as a holistic system, and manages it by combining a scientific risk assessment with stakeholder
input to identify risks and risk control options, and to evaluate risks is proposed. A regional risk governance
framework can improve safety by focusing on actual regional risks, designing tailor-made safety
measures to control them, enhancing a positive safety culture in the shipping industry, and by increasing
trust among all involved.