Marine Strategy Coordination Group (MSCG) / MSCG
Brussels
21-22 February 2012
Document: / Minutes of the meeting (DRAFT)
Date prepared: / 02-03-2012
Prepared by: / DG Environment & Milieu
MINUTES
1 Welcome and Introduction
The new Head of Marine Environment and Water Industry Unit, Astrid SCHOMAKER, opened the meeting and welcomed the participants. She also announced the retirement of Claude Rouam as Head of Unit and the departure of Carlos Berrozpe-Garcia, who is going to work on Rio+20 process.
The list of participants is in Annex 1. The papers and presentations for the meeting are listed in Annex 2, and are all available on CIRCA[1].
The Commission recalled that the meeting is divided in two main parts:
· The first day’s session which focuses on the Article 12 assessment and future work programme, a process taken very seriously by the Commission for which cooperation between the MS, the Regional Sea Conventions (RSC) and the Commission is essential to reach good results.
· A mini-seminar taking place the day after to address gaps between science and policy, which will give the opportunity to discuss the results of research projects, to inform policy makers and provide policy support to research relevant for MSFD implementation.
2 Adoption of the agenda and of the Minutes of the Meeting of 14 November
The Draft Agenda (Document MSCG/6/2012/1 – see list of Documents in Annex 2) and the minutes of the meeting of 14 November (MSCG DOC 18 (rev 21 December 2011)) were adopted.
3 Legal and implementation issues on MSFD, including Article 12
The Commission informed the meeting that legal transposition was completed with the exception of one MS. With regard to competent authorities (CA), the Commission provided a correction to the situation as described at the Marine Directors meeting in December: Greece has notified their authorities on time. The Commission is currently analysing the CA reports and the results can be discussed at the next meeting.
The Commission expressed its appreciation of the preparatory discussions and orientations from the Marine Directors meeting, as well as the UK-Germany contribution, and would like to see this cooperation continue. It underlined that the concept paper on Article 12 assessment did not need to be agreed during the meeting, but was meant to guide the discussions. The document will be further developed by the Commission and presented to the next MSCG meeting in May and to the Marine Directors meeting in June to achieve a common understanding on this process.
The Commission introduced the draft concept paper (Discussion paper MSCG 6/2012/2) and highlighted the importance of knowing in advance when the national reports will be submitted for planning purposes. Some Member States noted that there was some contradiction between the concept paper and the Commission Decision and the Document on Common Understanding, which should be addressed, especially with regard to the link between indicators and GES. In particular, one MS referred to the need to align section 4.1 on Assessment of Adequacy and the 2010 Commission Decision as regards the determination of GES. One MS noted that the link with follow-up work, namely the programme of measures, should be more emphasised.
The remaining discussion was structured around the different sections of the draft concept paper.
Section 2
The Commission emphasised that non-reporting is not an option. While the door will not be closed on 16 October, there should be a time limit. The Commission will discuss internally how to handle the case of MS which would have not reported by this deadline. The Commission added that the information should be organised in such a way as to enable the analysis within the time frame available. This meant that it will not always be possible to get into the level of details needed; hence, the importance of having in-depth assessments at a later stage. For example, if the compliance assessment identifies incoherence, the in-depth assessment would allow to look for solutions, involving the RSC. These in-depth assessments will be informal technical documents and not a formal Commission report such as the Article 12 assessment report.
In response to several questions, the Commission confirmed that the deadline of 15 July is for the MS to implement, while the notification deadline is three months later. The assessment of the report will only start after the notification date – 15 October. At this date, the documents must be notified. It is likely that most of the documents will be made publically available anyway or uploaded on the reporting system. The notification itself would just be a one page letter confirming that the documents published or uploaded in the system are the documents officially submitted. The Commission also reaffirmed that the way to report was through the EEA managed Reportnet, as is the practice for other directives.
The Commission also urged MS to notify the reporting sheets on the same date, filled in at least with regard to priority fields. Then, the assessment will start based on the reporting sheets and the national reports. The WFD experience has shown that national reports come in very different formats. This is why a structured reporting is essential for comparison purposes. Reporting sheets and the national reports should not contradict each other and need to be seen together. If a MS does not send reporting sheets, the Commission will extract the information from the national report to include in the reporting sheets. As the national reports will not be translated, it will be particularly important that reporting sheets are completed in English. Any other background documents will still be useful, in particular for the in-depth assessment, which could also use underlying data. These data can be submitted later as already agreed, as they will not be used for the Article 12 assessment. Several Member States expressed concerns as to the use of the reporting sheet as the main basis for the assessment, considering that additional information from the national reports should be taken into account in the assessment. Some MS raised questions with regard to the process for preparing in-depth assessment and how to ensure that the results of these assessments are taken into account by MS. One MS noted that there is no legal obligation for MS to submit their reports other than in their national language or to use reporting sheets to fulfill the MSFD reporting requirements.
One MS was concerned that according to the concept paper MS are obliged to fill in all fields of the Reporting Sheets and if so, asked the Commission how different standard entries of MS for the same fields such as “not relevant”, “not assessed” etc. or gaps in the report will be treated in the Article 12 process. The Commission indicated that if the national reports and the reporting sheets are incomplete, Article 12 provides the mandate for the Commission to ask for additional information. The Commission would send a letter to the MS with a request to reply in 4 weeks. The Commission noted that in all reporting sheets, it is possible to comment and explain reasons in case of gap in information and advised MS to make use of these explanatory fields (e.g. information not available, question not relevant for country x). One of the challenges is to evaluate how MS are dealing with gaps. The Commission confirmed that the detailed check-list for the assessment would be largely based on and closely linked to the reporting sheets. Finally one MS was of the opinion that a direct link between the consultant involved in the assessment and the MS might be necessary. The Commission responded that this was a question related to practicalities and that such process must be mandated by the Commission.
Time table
The Commission commented on the variable T. The practical answer to the question ‘when is T’ is:
· For individual MS, if the report is submitted on day 1 (15 October), the deadline is 15 April
· If the report is not complete and the Commission asks for additional information, the clock is put on hold.
· Any late submissions will be included in the assessment, provided the late submission still falls into the short grace period that the Commission may concede at its discretion. All the reports will be assessed with regard to completeness as soon as they come in. The Commission will try to align the group of MS in such a way to align the starting of the actual assessment and especially the coherence part. In this manner, it is expected that the official Commission report will be issued between July-Oct 2013. However, nothing is sure until it is clear when the reports will be available; hence, stressing the importance of knowing when MS will report.
The role of the RSC
Several Member States raised questions as to the role of the RSC. There was a general agreement that RSC should be involved but not in the compliance assessment, which remains a prerogative of the Commission. The in-depth assessments foreseen after the Article 12 assessment process could be very useful and should involve RSC. Future work programme should reflect on how the Commission and RSC activities complement each other to deliver the Directive in the most efficient way. The discussion on RSC ‘roof reports’ disclosed different concepts of what is meant by ‘roof report’. As a result, MS adopted different approaches to the question of including a RSC ‘roof report’ in their notification.
The Commission underlined that the section relates to the RSC and their parties, and not independent activities of the RSC Secretariats. The only aim is to coordinate and work together without taking decisions for the RSC. Several MS mentioned the differences between the different RSC and the various documents that can fall under the terminology ‘roof report’. Examples include the recent report submitted by the COP of the Barcelona Convention, which was prepared by the Secretariat and experts at sub-regional level and includes an assessment of the Mediterranean. The COP only took note of the report and did not endorse it. The HELCOM Joint Advisory Board Coreset/Targrev will consider a concrete proposal on the process for developing a regional roof report at its next meeting in the beginning of June. OSPAR has already integrated the MSFD in its activities and can enhance in the future coherence in the implementation of the Directive. OSPAR will consider this at its next meeting, but this will take place only after the next MSCG. It was suggested that existing reports from RSC can be sampled rather than notified. The Commission answered that unless notified officially, the RSC reports will not be taken into account in the assessment, even if the Commission knows they exist.
While RSC do not have a role in compliance assessment, they have a formal role afterwards, especially in terms of coherence at regional and sub-regional levels. Identified gaps could be streamlined in future research projects. The Commission mentioned that the RSC and EU level activities should be complementary and MS should have a clear and strong view about what the RSC role could be, taking into account the differences between the RSC but making sure that all are involved. It emphasised that the problem of coherence exists within each regions but also within one MS when it is part of two different RSC. The EU has a role to play in terms of coherence between regions (e.g. capacity building). Possible forms of cooperation should be discussed more intensively with the RSC. The Commission has also a responsibility as a party to the RSC and towards MS to improve the situation. RSC could work together on certain aspects (e.g. HELCOM collaborating with Black Sea). Sub-regional approach could also be a possible stepping stone.
The role of the RSCs will be further specified at the next MSCG meeting in May.
Section 3
The Commission noted that completeness assessment was a mechanical process. On a question on the use of Annex III to the Directive, it replied that there was no problem to mention Annex III and that most aspects are already captured in the reporting sheets.
Section 4
The Commission highlighted that this section will be completed and a section 5 added on the follow-up process. One MS mentioned that it was important to consider not only consistency between Articles 8, 9 and 10 but also within one article e.g. between the different elements of the IA (Article 8). The relationship between completeness and adequacy was questioned as the two assessments appear closely linked. On section 4.1, one MS questioned the bullet point on monitoring and noted that section 4.2 remained open-ended. The EEA also noted that section 4.1 could be more detailed and, in relation to ESA, consider also adequacy along consistency in relation to Article 8(1)(c). A stakeholder noted that the fact that some indicators or descriptors would not be filled in possibly due to difference in level of knowledge, should be reflected in the concept paper. In relation to one MS’s concern, the Commission noted that reporting on transitional waters are out of the reporting as this may have been reported upon under the WFD.
The questions in section 4 can be discussed with MS, including in relation to future organisation as to what to do with the answers to these questions. The outcome of the Article 12 process very much links to the Commission programme. It is important to determine who (the RSC, the MS, the Commission) does what.
The Commission emphasised that this concept paper is not a detailed methodological document and a certain level of generality is needed to ensure flexibility. It commented on the difference between completeness and adequacy. Completeness assessment is short, rather mechanical and simplistic, looking only at information available or not. However, lack of information can be adequate. It also recalled that the reporting sheets are set up to ensure the flexibility provided for in the Common Understanding document, as MS are not required to report on all levels (criteria, descriptors, etc.) and some elements can be reported under Article 10.