Adoption of Catania Declaration

Under the Catania Declaration adopted here on Friday, Mediterranean states agreed to work towards accelerating the phase-out of single hull oil tankers (such as the Prestige and the Erika) as part of a broad range of commitments to promote regional sustainable development. The declaration was issued by the 13th meeting of the Contracting Parties to the 1975 Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution. Parties comprise France, Greece, Spain, Italy, the European Community, as well as 16 south and east Mediterranean states, including Malta.

"Malta is very happy with this outcome," the acting head of the Maltese delegation to the conference Dr Simone Borg told The Sunday Times. Dr Borg is the Environmental Law and Policy Advisor to the Minister of Rural Affairs and Environment - who cancelled his participation due to parliamentary duties.

"About 80 per cent of Europe's fuel oil passes through the Mediterranean, with heavy traffic through the Sicily-Malta strait," she explained. "The EU is already drafting a directive to ban single hull tankers in its waters, while Italy has already banned them. The southern Mediterranean states' support for eventual phase-out through the International Maritime Organisation is very encouraging - despite their concern at the possible impacts on their economies."

EU's proposed European Marine Strategy was strongly supported, and will be developed in consultation with MAP. The conference also mandated MAP to draft a convention to limit the environmental damage caused by pleasure craft.

Delegates adopted detailed guidelines for the establishment of a Mediterranean Sustainable Development Strategy for adoption at the end of 2005, to be closely linked to each country's national SD strategy. The regional strategy will be worked out by the Convention's advisory body, the Mediterranean Commission for Sustainable Development, with inputs from environmental NGOs, business circles and local authorities.

"Malta has urged that the Mediterranean strategy must be built around credible and practical targets on key priorities adopted last year in Johannesburg by the World Summit on Sustainable Development," Dr Borg said. "We are also advocating closer integration between the Barcelona Convention process and the work of its supporting secretariat, the Mediterranean Action Plan, and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership - which so far has done little on sustainability issues.

"MEPA is working on Malta's own national sustainable development strategy to be submitted to the National Council for Sustainable Development, at present being reconstituted with a broadly based membership after its dissolution earlier this year.

"Many of the other Catania Declaration commitments on pollution control have already started to be implemented by Malta", she added. "The measures involved are all within the EU's acquis communautaire - which however often goes much further than the Catania language. But the Declaration implies a progressive raising of standards in Southern countries in the future."

Key regional pollution control measures agreed include the progressive elimination of land-based sources of pollution, reduction of hazardous wastes from industrial installations and establishment of Pollutant Registers. An ambitious regional Biodiversity Action Plan (SAP BIO) was also endorsed along with guidelines on coastal management.

"Malta needs to extend its administrative capacity in environmental management," the European Commission's Director-General for the Environment, Catherine Day told The Sunday Times. "I see the need for a new agency to cope with the large amount of preparatory work required to enable Malta to fully benefit from EU's Structural Funds," she added. She also said that the EU would be launching a Union-wide multi-stakeholder debate on sustainable resource use as well waste prevention and recycling, as a contribution to the on-going development by the Commission of holistic sustainability strategies for the enlarged EU.