Third Meeting of the UfM Working Group on Blue Economy
5 July 2017, Brussels. – The 3rd Meeting of the UfM Working Group on Blue Economy took place on 5th July 2017 in Brussels, chaired by European Commission in close collaboration with the UfM Secretariat. The Working Group was informed of the outcomes of the UfM Regional Seminar on the Blue Economy (Barcelona, May 2017), concerning the identification of the Technical Assistance needs of the partner countries on aquaculture and maritime spatial planning (MSP); the ongoing IMP MED study on the potential of the blue economy was also presented with the priorities for Technical Assistance identified by the partner countries.
The UfM Secretariat provided a thoroughly briefing of the ongoing activities to progress in the implementation of the Ministerial declaration, including the activation of various Technical Assistance to support on marine litter, sustainable production and consumption applied to blue economy as well as on the extension of the BLUEMED Initiative to southern Mediterranean countries. An updated version of the Virtual Knowledge Center on Blue Economy (http://www.med-vkc-blueconomy.org/)
was presented and the members of the Working Group were invited to register as blue economy stakeholders.
Special attention was devoted to the content and format of the forthcoming UfM Regional Stakeholder Conference on Blue Economy, scheduled for the end of the year, and its main structure agreed upon.
The Managing Authority of the MED programme informed of the upcoming launch of the Axis 4 project, called “Panoramed”, on 27th September 2017 in Sevilla (Spain).
