Seabed mapping — blue growth and jobs

8.10.2012

Question for written answer E-008993-12
to the Commission
Rule 117
Louis Grech (S&D)

Better management of the oceans and seas surrounding Europe will offer new potential for growth and jobs within the framework of the EU 2020 goals. At the end of August 2012, the Commission adopted its Green Paper on ‘Marine Knowledge’ and launched a consultation on how the aims it sets out can be achieved. The Commission proposes that a digital seabed map of European waters be created by 2020 by means of collecting all existing data into a single database accessible to all.

The Commission’s initiative promises to be a system which will be accessible and interoperable, will be free of restrictions on use, and will help Member States maximise the potential of their marine observation, sampling and surveying programmes.

I believe that in order to achieve this, the current structure whereby data is fragmented and held by various institutions within Europe must be overhauled and transformed into a single and streamlined one-stop information point for all the industry, for all those who work or operate at sea, for all who heavily invest — or wish to invest — in this resource, and for public authorities in general.

This initiative would also serve as a fine opportunity to give new life to the ground-breaking concept proposed some decades ago by Arvid Pardo (former Maltese Ambassador to the UN), who argued that oceans go beyond national jurisdiction and are indeed ‘the common heritage of mankind’. Pardo’s call to all countries — to protect ocean resources and prevent their arbitrary appropriation, to curb pollution and to enforce regulations securing peace at sea — remains key to the workability and sustainability of the Commission’s latest proposal, not least in the Mediterranean, and in particular for island states like Malta.

Can the Commission explain how the expansion of the blue economy can be developed, furthered and secured, particularly for island Member States such as Malta?

OJ C 294 E, 10/10/2013