REMPEC meeting finalises Med strategy

An ambitious 10-year Mediterranean regional strategy for prevention and response to marine pollution from ships was finalised in Malta last Thursday by the senior maritime officials of the 22 Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention.

The text will be submitted for formal endorsement by the next conference of the Contracting Parties in Slovenia in November and be integrated into the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development under preparation and also due for endorsement there.

The four-day meeting in Sliema was organised by REMPEC (the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea), a UN office based in Manoel Island reporting both to the UN Environment Programme's Mediterranean Action Programme, of which it is one of the six Regional Activity Centres, and the UN International Maritime Organisation.

With an estimated cost of $54 million (Lm17 million), the Strategy establishes a detailed roadmap for implementing the Barcelona Convention Protocol concerning Co-operation in Preventing Pollution from Ships, and in cases of Emergency, Combating Pollution of the Mediterranean Sea, 2002, which entered into force last year.

The Strategy aims to overcome the increasingly threatening problem of deliberate illegal discharges from ships in Mediterranean waters, running at some 2,000 a year. Forbidden under the MARPOL 73/78 treaty (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships), its provisions are poorly enforced in the region and not all non-EU Mediterranean states have ratified it.

At any moment in the Mediterranean, 2,000 merchant vessels of over 100 gross registered tonnes are at sea, including 250-300 oil tankers; and some 200,000 merchant vessels, a significant number carrying hazardous chemicals, transit annually. Much of the traffic is through traffic, i.e. not to or from the region's 305 ports.

Moreover, a massive increase in trans-Mediterranean merchant shipping is on the cards - due to plans for new oil and gas pipeline terminals, relocation of industries, increased cargo flows which could result from implementation of the proposed Euromediterranean Free Trade Area, as well as the EU's ambitious 'Motorways of the Sea' project to shift a proportion of European cargo traffic from roads to ships.

Malta is especially vulnerable, both due to being an island, and the huge traffic passing through the 95-km stretch of sea separating it from Sicily. Speaking to The Sunday Times, senior Maltese officials at the meeting welcomed the Strategy as highly beneficial to the country, adding that the government's maritime activities would be reorganised to meet Malta's related commitments.

At the end of the meeting, Paul Mifsud, the MAP Co-ordinator (Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Resources and Infrastructure until his appointment a year ago), explained to The Sunday Times that "the Regional Strategy addresses 21 specific objectives to be achieved by 2015.

"These include ratification of conventions relating to the protection of the marine environment; ensuring effective maritime administrations in Mediterranean countries; strengthening port state control; provision of port reception facilities; management of ship-generated waste; integrated regional surveillance, detection and control of illicit discharges, improved legal enforcement provisions and prosecution of offenders; and reduction of pollution generated by pleasure craft."

In related developments, a recently completed REMPEC project co-financed by the European Commission conducted a detailed survey of waste handling and refuge facilities of 84 leading Mediterranean ports in both Barcelona Convention and other countries, pinpointing upgrading required for them to support full implementation of both MARPOL and the new regional strategy.

REMPEC's expanding activities are backed by its computerised MIDSIS-TROCS English/French Regional Information System covering 700 chemical and 250 hydrocarbon products, as well as a list of maritime accidents. Exhaustive data on present and projected future Mediterranean sea traffic over the next 15 years is also being assembled.

Mr Mifsud confirmed that the Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Dr Joe Borg had welcomed UNEP MAP's recent request to participate in the consultation process for the preparation of the Green Paper to be issued next spring on a possible future EU Maritime Policy.