Strasbourg, 12/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 11 December in Strasbourg, the European Parliament ensured that member states of the EU are obliged to elaborate and implement marine strategies to attain or maintain a good environmental status by 2020 at the latest. This demand is at the heart of the agreement of the second reading, for which the Parliament and Council created a directive for a framework of action in European marine policy that has three aims: ensure protection and conservation of the marine environment, prevent its deterioration and when this is possible, ensure the restoration of marine ecosystems in areas that have deteriorated.
Initially, the Council interpreted good ecological status for the sea as an aim towards which it would strive and not an incontestable obligation.
The agreement concludes the efforts of rapprochement deployed by the Parliament, Council and Commission on a directive that forms the cornerstone of the EU's thematic strategy for protection and preservation of the marine environment.
Good environmental status in the marine environment by 2020 is a half-way house between Parliament's initial goal of 2017 and the Council's, which supported a 2021 cut-off date. Socialist MEP Marie-Nöelle Lienemann, the rapporteur on this dossier, was pleased that “thanks to the Parliament the objectives and the results of the directive are binding”. She did not hide the fact that she would have liked more solid provisions to make the creation of protected marine zones compulsory. Ms Lienemann said she accepted the compromise because it meant that the principle of these zones had been maintained.
In the context of the directive's implementation, the text outlines a subdivision of the European waters into marine and sub-marine regions. Elaboration of strategies for the marine environment will be done in several stages: these strategies will develop programmes for measures by 2015 that will enter into force in 2016 and which, by 2020 will have led to a good environmental status in the marine environment. Member states that share a marine region will have to cooperate so that their marine strategies are coherent and coordinated. They will also have to do everything to coordinate their activities with third countries from the same marine region, including regional maritime agreements.
If the marine environmental status is insufficient, emergency action will be required that will allow member states the possibility of enacting strengthened action at a regional or sub-marine regional level, through the implementation of pilot projects. This will facilitate the speeding up of the directive's implementation. Additional protection measures required will be authorised as long as they do not have a negative impact on the given marine regions or sub-regions.
Marine strategies will be based on the preservation of eco-systems and management of human activities so that collective pressure exercised can be maintained at acceptable levels.
As the Council wished, a certain flexibility is required to avoid costs in the absence of major risks to the marine environment. Under the terms of the agreement, member states will not be obliged to take specific measures when there is no high risk to the marine environment or when these measures are disproportionate to the risk. The Parliament, however, succeeded in imposing the obligation on member states to prove that the marine environment would not suffer from further deterioration and to avoid permanent danger to the good environmental status.
The Council's common position, as amended by the European Parliament, is thought to have been approved, which opens the way to the formal adoption of the directive.
Françoise Grossetête (EPP-ED, France) was delighted that the EU had finally opted for a global approach that took into account all aspects of a sustainable development policy for the European maritime area, because in parallel to the degradation of this environment an erosion was taking place in the ecological capital, which compromised opportunities for wealth and job creation in the marine environment (such as fishing and tourism). She declared that “efforts could continue with the creation of marine nature parks at a European level”.
Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner for the Environment, welcomed this progress because “it is absolutely vital for the EU to protect its marine environment and clean up its oceans and seas. This requires an integrated approach to marine management”. (A.N./L.G.)