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Recommendation 1888 (2009)
Towards a new ocean governance
1. The Parliamentary
Assembly refers to its Resolution
1694 (2009) “Towards a new ocean governance”.
2. The Assembly draws attention to the proposals in the “Blue
Book” issued in 2007 under the title "An integrated maritime policy
for the European Union", which call for Europe to take steps as
quickly as possible to agree policies and actions geared towards
a common vision of the role of the oceans for the future of humankind.
3. The Assembly also refers to the principles set out in the
EurOcean intergovernmental project for co-ordinating maritime scientific
and technological information.
4. It also believes that the Council of Europe is the most appropriate
institution for promoting a new vision of the oceans through a new
legal and institutional framework aimed at establishing a new type
of governance of the oceans.
5. In view of the increase in maritime insecurity and in illegal
immigration, human trafficking and piracy, the Assembly underlines
the need to take measures to guarantee the social rights of seafarers
as set out in the European Social Charter and to establish standards
for maritime security and pollution.
6. In the more specific case of the North Atlantic, there have
been rapid changes in the nature of the pollution it suffers. In
particular, its waters have been affected by land-based pollution,
shipping, over-exploitation of resources and oil production.
7. The Assembly observes that new regions, such as the Arctic
and Greenland, are being intensively exploited, and that this can
have harmful consequences for the environment and climate change
in general.
8. The Assembly therefore calls on the Committee of Ministers
to:
8.1. instruct a committee of
experts to define a legal and institutional framework for new ocean governance;
8.2. invite the Parliamentary Assembly to take part in the
work of the committee of experts.
9. The Assembly also recommends that the Committee of Ministers
call on governments of member states to:
9.1. take part in the EurOcean intergovernmental project;
9.2. promote the establishment and proper management of marine
protected areas.
10. The Assembly also calls on the Congress of Local and Regional
Authorities to:
10.1. analyse and
encourage cases of good practice in sharing information and governance
of the seas and oceans at a regional level;
10.2. develop awareness-raising programmes that deal with defending
and conserving the oceans and their potential;
10.3. adopt policies for coastline management, sewage treatment,
supervision of economic activity and water-basin preservation.