ABSTRACT
The Hesselo Island appears in international atlases and has 0.7 sq.km with a maximal altitude of 20 metres and is used by the firm F. L. Smidth for holidays for its employees, but has two permanent inhabitants. The Danish enterprise A. P. Moller had a general concession from 1961 to drill for oil and gas in the entire Danish economic zone, reaffirmed for a location between Hesselo and Sweden on 7 June, of which Sweden was informed. A Swedish-Danish treaty of 1934 covered territorial waters in the Sound; for the Skaw, there was only a fishing treaty of 1932. The Swedish press saw some statements by the Danish Premier and foreign minister as insulting. Swedish criticism focused on Danish unilateral behaviour, acting without previous information and consultation, and press comments saw this as important: tolerating Danish unilateralism in disputed waters might have encouraged similar Union of Soviet Socialist Republics actions in the Baltic.
