GES_17-2017
Marine Strategy Framework Directive
Common Implementation Strategy
17th Meeting of the
Working Group on Good Environmental Status (GES)
Document: / Draft Minutes: 17thmeeting of the Working Group on Good Environmental Status (WG GES)
Title / Draft Minutes of the 17th WG GES meeting
Date prepared: / 20-03-2017
Prepared by: / DG Environment and Milieu
Minutes
Meeting of WG on Good Environmental Status (WG GES)
10 March 2017, Brussels
1Approval of the agenda and of the minutes of the 16th WG GES meeting
The meeting was co-chaired by Anna Cheilariand David Connor from the Marine Environment and Water Industry Unit at DG Environment. The co-chairUli Claussen from Germany wasunable to attend the meeting. The Commission informed the group that Italy has volunteered to co-chair WG GES. A list of participants is found in Section 7 of this report. The documents and presentations for the meeting are listed in Annex 1, and are available on CIRCABC.
The co-chair presented the Draft Agenda and announced that the Revised Commission Decision is approved by Coreper, and is now under scrutiny by the European Parliament until 20 April 2017.
A Member State noted that it was not informed on the start of the scrutiny period for the GES Decision. The Commission clarified that the standard procedure for informing Member States was followed.
The participants approved the Draft Agenda of the meeting as well as the minutes of the 16thmeeting of WG GES.
2Nature of the meeting
The meeting was non-public. The meeting was open to Member States, Commission Services and to MSFD CIS process-registered stakeholders. All participants attended the meeting in person.
3List of points discussed
3.1Update on CIS activities of relevance to WG GES – information
3.1.1Report on the WG POMESA meeting (30 January 2017)
The WG GES was informed on theoutcomes of the last WG POMESA meeting of 30 January 2017. These can be consulted in the summary slides of the WG POMESA meeting on CIRCABC.
One Member State commented that WG POMESA should take into account and link-up with work being undertaken in the context of the implementation of the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (in terms of data collection activities).
3.1.2Report on the WG DIKE meeting (1-2 March 2017)
The WGGES was informed on the outcomes of the last WG DIKE meeting of 1-2 March 2017. The meeting focused on discussing the 2018 reporting guidance on updating Articles 8, 9 and 10. Progress on the structure and content of the reporting sheets has been made. The overarching aim is to reduce the amount of information needed for the reporting, prefill reporting sheets with data from the WFD(for D5 and D8), the CFP (for D3) and with additional data from the RSCs. The draft reporting guidance was circulated to WG DIKE in February for comments. A refined proposal will be prepared by the end of April 2017. The details of the outcomes of the last WG DIKE meeting can be consulted on CIRCABC.
Several Member States welcomed the work and thanked the Commission for it. They also added that they will raise few critical points on the guidance under agenda point 5 (Section 3.3.4).
3.2Commission Article 12 & Article 16 assessments
3.2.1Article 12 assessment reports of the Monitoring Programmes (Article 11)
The WG GES was informed on the Article 12assessment results of the Article 11 monitoring programme reports of Member States. The reports were published in January 2017. The reports are available online on DG Environment’s website.
The outputs of this assessment exercise are:
-A report from the Commission to the EP and Council assessing Member States' monitoring programmes under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
-Annexes which include the Member State-specific recommendations. These have taken the form of a CommissionStaff Working Document. The report also contains the Article 12 assessments of Articles 8-9-10 for the late reporting Member States.
In addition to the above-mentioned reports, the Member State specific technical assessments, as well as the Regional reports, prepared by the Milieu Consortium have also been published on DG Environment’s website.
Discussion:
-One Member State commented on the difficulties it faced in the design and set-up of its monitoring programmes. It highlighted that these were due to the institutional complexity and arrangements between its administrative regions (relevant to its three marine subregions), as well as to challenges that relate to regional cooperation and transboundary issues in the Mediterranean.
-Several Member States commented that they have received the official letters informing them on the publication of these assessments from the Commission and they plan to send their replies in the upcoming weeks / months.
-Few Member States asked if their letters will also be published online as done so in the previous assessment cycle for Articles 8-9-10. The Commission agreed to come back to the Member States on this point and clarify the process.
-Another Member State commented that the letters sent by the Commission asked for progress reports on the implementation of the monitoring programmes. The Member State then asked, how this feedback is to be given (i.e. formal procedure). The Commission commented that there is no formal structure for this, and feedback can be submitted by correspondence.
-In response to a comment from a Member State, the Commission specified that there is no formal deadline for receiving the reply letters from Member States, but it would be preferable if this is done soon. It also added that for some Member States, as indicated in their letters, another follow-up is planned and more discussions are foreseen.
-The Commission informed that any missing assessment reports in this batch are because of the delayed date of reporting by the Member States in question. A cut-off date was implemented to manage the process more effectively and finalise the reports. The same procedure is currently being applied for the assessments of the PoMs and exceptions (Article 16 reports). Assessment reports for the monitoring programmes for latecomers (i.e. Malta, Poland, UK (Gibraltar) and Greece) will be published in the next assessment publication round, that of the PoMs and exceptions.
3.2.2Articles 13 & 14 – State-of-play
Anna Cheilari from the Commission presented the state-of-play of Articles 13 and 14 reporting by Member States. The presentation can be consulted on CIRCABC.
Spain commented that they are in the process of finalising their EIA procedure outcome, which is the only part of their PoM currently missing. All other documents have already been uploaded on EIONET. Any eventual changes in the PoM, following the completion of the EIA will be notified to the Commission.
Malta also informed the Commission that they are finalising their PoM, and this is expected to be reported soon.
3.3Improving assessment of GES
3.3.1Technical guidance for assessments under Article 8
David Connor from the Commission informed WG GES that the Article 8 Guidance has been edited based on the written comments submitted by WG GES. Two versions are produced and the document is now closed. One version includes all modificationsin ‘track-changes’ and another clean version. In addition to these, a separate document detailing all comments received from Member States and stakeholders, in addition to the manner in which they were dealt with is produced. An effort has been made to also accommodate comments submitted after the deadline to the greatest extent possible.
The Article 8 Guidance is thus released for testing by Member States and RSCs. Feedback from the testing can be provided at the next WG GES meeting.
Outstanding issues are identified in the Guidance. These are being fed into the planning of the follow-up work (discussed in section 3.3.3 of these minutes), and will no longer be dealt with in the context of this document which is now closed.
Discussion:
-Several Member State welcomed the document, highlighting the clear structure, content and effective identification of outstanding issues.
-One Member State called for a practical summary document bringing together information from all guidance documents which will allow experts at the Member State level to grasp the process and understand the manner in which these can be used.
-One Member State expressed regret that quantitative aggregation rules (e.g. how to present results of percent of species for which the thresholds are achieved for) are not included in the Guidance but also added that it understands the difficulties faced in this respect. The Commission added that there are too many outstanding technical issues in this regard, which did not allow for the inclusion of these type of rules in the Guidance. It also drew the attention of WG GES to the draft output tables which have been removed from the Article 8 Guidance but added to the Reporting Guidance, given their relevance to reporting.
-The Commission commented that WG GES needs to acknowledge that this is a transition period between two implementation cycles, and technical complexities will need to be dealt with accordingly.
-One Member State called for all planned workshops to take place as soon as possible and the work to progress.
-One Member State asked the reason their comments have not been considered in the final version of the Article 8 Guidance. The Commission clarified that the Member State’s comments came too late. Yet the comments are acknowledged and are listed in the Comment Compilation document, and they will be captured in the follow-up workplan.
-The same Member State provided detailed technical comments on the document, which stated - among other points –that One Out All Out (OOAO) rules would only be acceptable if spelled out in the Directive or agreed to at the (sub)regional level; that the Revised Commission Decision’s on criteria and methodological standards are not applicable in the 2018 assessments as they came too late in the process;and that the Guidance should take into account set of characteristics and not only be based on thresholds. It also added, that the testing of the Guidance will not be easy for Mediterranean Member States as UNEP / MAP works with trends and not threshold values.
-Another comment highlighted that the 2012 assessment results came to the conclusion that regional coherence needs to be improved, which can mainly be done through the RSC structure. As such, the Member State commented that it is of upmost importance for this Guidance document to also have strategic vision, namely by providing: guidance on how coherence can be achieved between the four European regions; guidance on how this can be done in the operational capacity of each RSC; and finally, technical guidance to individual Member States in relation to implementation aspects. The Commission welcomed the comment and appreciated the different perspective provided on the work, but also highlighted that work from RSCs has already been taken into account. It acknowledged the difficulties faced by UNEP / MAP, but also stated that work needs to move forward for all regions. In practical terms, the EU is funding regional projects to allow for progress and increased coherence at the regional level (e.g. ActionMED, MEDCIS and IDEM in the Mediterranean). Finally, it was clarified that in addition to regional work, the MSFD requires Member State level actions, which this guidance tries to elaborate on.
-One Member State commented that the application of the OOAO rule should be carefully done as to avoid distorting or ‘hiding’ assessment results. Another Member State stated that they do not agree with the OOAO rule.
-One Member State reminded the WG GES that the document will not be forwarded to the MSCG for approval. Another Member State added that the document as such is not officially ‘endorsed’ by Member States, but accepted for testing.
-Several Member States commented that at the regional level, experts are still struggling with use of indicators and so work on integration has not yet started. Furthermore, any integration done will be at the high-level. Another Member State added that experts will use this to the greatest extent possible but it also acknowledged that its use will be limited.
-The Commission asked WG GES to comment on the timescales of data to be reported (e.g. average over a 6-year period or last recorded value). Member States commented that this will depend on the availability of data and on the descriptor in question, hence both options are possible. Furthermore, different periods are sometimes used at the RSC and national level assessments, so again there will be variations.
-Birdlife welcomed the Guidance as well, and asked if any efforts are being made to coordinate with work of experts in the framework of the Birds and Habitats Directive (in terms of deciding on threshold values). The Commission welcomed the comment and clarified that coordination efforts are indeed important and are being made where applicable.
3.3.2Developments on the Common Understanding document
The Commission recalled that at the last meeting, it was agreed to forward the Common Understanding (CU) document to the MSCG, with a note that one Member State has reservations on it.
Meanwhile, further minor editing changes have been made to the document in order to be submitted for informal Interservice consultation and the Member State has sent additional written comments on the document, which have also been taken into account, lifting the reservation. The document will now go into inter-service consultation process of the Commission. It will then be readyand sent to the MSCG in April 2017.
One Member State asked what the state-of-play is in regards to the Cross-cutting document; and if an updated version of it is planned. The Commission clarified that the last update on the Cross-cutting document dates from 2015. It is planned for the document to be edited and also forwarded to the MSCG in April 2017, for information purposes, but not for endorsement.
3.3.3Review of GES Decision & MSFD Annex III: Follow-up work and Article 8 outstanding issues
The Commission introduced the document on the follow up work of the review of GES decision and Annex III and Article 8 outstanding issues. Then, ICES and the JRC presented their draft roadmaps in the framework of the follow-up work in relation to the Review of the GES Decision and the MSFD Annex III as well as the outstanding issues identified in the context of the Article 8 Guidance. Both presentations can be accessed on CIRCABC (ICES and JRC).
After the presentations, the Commission asked WG GES to comment on the proposal and indicate priorities, or other work areas.
Discussion:
-Several Member States welcomed the proposal but also expressed concern on the amount of extra resources it will require for national experts to contribute to this work in a meaningful manner. In addition, it was mentioned that the proposed timetable is too ambitious, and that for national experts the priority now is to prepare the 2018 reporting. As such, it was requested to prioritise the work. The Commission, JRC and ICES acknowledged the need for prioritising the work, but also added that some of the work can be done through online collaboration, rather than physical meetings.
-One Member State commented that the work should not only focus on thresholds as this does not apply to all regional contexts; as such it was requested for any work on this to be divided up between threshold values needed at the EU level and threshold values needed at the (sub)regional level. The Member State added that the Mediterranean context is not being taken into account in a sufficient manner in this proposal. ICES clarified that they also work with Mediterranean experts and that they link with the work with STECF and GFCM. The Commission added that any work on threshold values and their determination will be done by Member States and not by ICES and the JRC who are simply facilitating the work and providing the basis for discussions.
-Another Member State commented that integration of assessment results and work on D3C3 are not a priority. Another Member State commented that any work on D3C3 should be coordinated with DG MARE.
-Priorities mentioned by different Member States include:
- Work on the risk based approach
- Development of lists (e.g. elements, contaminants, species etc.)
- GES thresholds which are to be defined at the EU level (i.e. for D6, D10 and D11)
- Creation of a Task group on D6
-Several Member States requested for the tasks to be streamlined, better structured and checked against RSC work as to avoid duplicating any work.
-One Member State requested for the detailed assignments to JRC and ICES to be shared with the WG GES. The Commission clarified the processes and informed the group that a general mandate is given to these two organisations through the signed Administrative arrangements.
-One Member State requested for documents to be circulated well ahead of meeting for review by experts, and in case of delays, Member States to be notified by email on late uploads on CIRCABC.