EMSA APPRECIATES THE ADDED VALUE OF REGIONS ON MARITIME SAFETY

“AQUAMARINA”, a working group of 40 maritime Regions* created at the initiative of Jean-Yves Le Drian, President of the Regional Council of Brittany (FR), met for the first time on 26 March 2008 in Brussels at the Committee of the Regions to follow up the implementation of the EU action plan resulting from the Blue Book “An Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union”.

Maritime safety was at the heart of the debates during this first meeting organised in the presence of Mr Emilio Martin Bauza, Advisor-Maritime Affairs at the European Maritime Safety Agency.

EM: Mr Martin Bauza, how will EMSA be involved in the creation of the EU maritime policy?

EMB: “As a technical organisation, we are not dealing with political matters and EU maritime policy in general. ...

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A FOOD POLICY FOR EUROPE
Béatrice Gendreau, Vice-President of Aquitaine Regional Council (FR)

A technical meeting to discuss the Health Check of the CAP, organised by Aquitaine Region and the CPMR, took place in Brussels on 25 March 2008. Patrick Anvroin, CPMR’s Director for agriculture and responsible for this initiative, declared himself satisfied with the outcome of the meeting, at which fifty-five participants from thirty-three Regions discussed the positions that could be jointly defended by the regions during 2008 on the European Union’s agriculture, food and rural development policies.

“CPMR wishes to contribute to the debate on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy,” said Mr Anvroin. “This policy is set to undergo changes following the ‘Health Check’ currently under discussion within the EU institutions and a perhaps more significant reform as of 2014.”

The meeting was chaired by Béatrice Gendreau, Vice-President of Aquitaine Regional Council, who launched the idea of a regionalisation of the CAP. ...

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WHAT STRATEGY FOR THE OUTERMOST REGIONS? - Jessica Julan-Aubourg, Head of Fisheries and Agriculture, Guadeloupe Regional Council (FR)

Ms Julan-Aubourg is Head of Fisheries and Agriculture at Guadaloupe Regional Council. She attended the first meeting of the “AQUAMARINA” working group at the Committee of the Regions on 26 March 2008, where she intervened several times during the debates to draw attention to the differences between the outermost regions and the continental coastal regions in the context of maritime policy.

“In Guadeloupe, we face a number of constraints. Guadeloupe is an outermost region with many handicaps stemming from its geographical situation as well as related to regulations and customs duties. It is important for us to participate in the work of the ‘Aquamarina’ group in order to highlight these difficulties, which are specific to the outermost regions. ...

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PRESTIGE, NUNCA MAS !

Mrs Cayetana LADO CASTRO-RIAL, one of the Spanish government’s lawyers in charge of the “Prestige” case, took part in the CPMR-AQUAMARINA meeting in Brussels on 26 March 2008.

The meeting, supported/chaired by Brittany Region and hosted by the Committee of the Regions, focused mainly on maritime safety and underlined that coastal authorities are the first to be affected by maritime accidents.

Only a few days before the decision of the Council to reduce the measures of the ERIKA III package, Mrs Lado Castro, informed the CPMR Regions about the most recent news on the Prestige case:

“The most recent news on the Prestige case is the admission of the plaintive presented by a private organisation called NUNCA MAS which means NEVER AGAIN. This plaintive is to be admitted by the judge in September 2008”.. ...

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