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GENEMOD050014A4

07/08/07

Note technique du Secrétariat Général de la CRPM

OPENDAYS 2007-08-07

THE ATLANTIC ARC COMMISSION

ABSTRACT

The presentation will focus on four aspects:

- A brief presentation of the links between the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR) and the Atlantic Arc Commission (AAC);

- The main AAC features: facts and figures, objectives and major outputs;

- The challenges facing the AAC today and its perspectives;

- A wrap-up conclusion

1- The links between the CPMR and the AAC

The CPMR is a network bringing together about 160 Regions from 27 States (EU and non-EU countries). It is a political forum which is independent of EU institutions, and aims both at representing its Regions’ interests and specificities at European level, and at being an active source of proposals and analysis for Regional actors as well as for EU institutions.

In order to make it easier to articulate the particular circumstances of each of the major sea basins, the CPMR decided to organise itself into 6 “Geographical Commissions”(GCs). Together with the Islands Commission, the Baltic Sea Commission, the North Sea Commission, the Balkans and Black Sea Commission and the Intermediterranean Commission, the Atlantic Arc Commission is one of these GCs.

The GCs have no legal existence and are parts of the CPMR.

2- The AAC main features

2.1 – Facts and figures

The AAC was established in 1989 at the CPMR Faro General Assembly. It brings together 30 Regions from the 5 countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean: 8 Spanish Autonomies, 7 French Regional Councils, 5 Portuguese Coordination and Regional DevelopmentCommissions, 1 Irish Region and 9 UK County Councils.

The President of the AAC is elected for a two-year period. The current President was elected in June 2006: Vicente Alvares Areces is the President of the Principality of Asturias (Spain). The President chairs the Political Bureau, which comprises x member regions and whose mandate is to set the AAC political guidelines.

The coordination of the day-to-day work is done by the Executive Secretariat, which is directly linked to the Presidency.

2.2 – Objectives and activities

The main objective of the AAC is to give value to the specificities of the Atlantic territories, by enhancing their assets and facing its disadvantages and drawbacks,in a perspective of sustainable development and attractivity of Atlantic territories:

- to reap the benefits of the Atlantic Ocean

- to improve the accessibility of Atlantic territories

- to preserve the unique Atlantic environment

- to cooperate and reconcile Atlantic stakeholders on the basis of joint interests and challenges.

In this respect, the activities of the AAC are twofold.On the one hand, political action aims at influencing EU policy preparation and development impacting on the Atlantic area – either directly or within the CPMR. On the other hand, technical action allows putting in practice the political guidelines set by the Political Bureau.

These actions are implemented by 5 working groups working on:

- Research and Innovation (led by Basse-Normandie)

- Transports and accessibility (led by the Basque Country)

- Integrated Coastal Zones Management and Environment (Led by Aquitaine)

- Fisheries (led by Galicia)

- Maritime Safety (led by Lisboa e Vale do Tejo)

Besides, a “coordination group” led by the Executive Secretary aims at coordinating the works done by the working groups, at creating synergies and avoiding duplication of works.

2.3 – Examples of projects and outputs

A compléter

3 – Challenges and perspectives for the AAC

The 2007-2013 period means new challenges and perspectives for the AAC.The Lisbon Agenda requests all European territories to participate in the common European effort towards a sustainable growth and competitiveness. In the current competition between territories, how to make the Atlantic Regions more attractive and competitive, and therefore enhance their contribution to the Lisbon strategy? In this perspective, how can the AAC best add value?

A focus on sea-related activities: finding the right options to add value

The ASDP showed that several action scales exist within the Atlantic Area: a micro-scale (the one of networks of towns and cities close to each other), a meso-scale (the one of “project areas”) and the whole Atlantic scale, for which the maritime dimension is the main common point. This finding, which was followed by the decision to limit the Interreg IVB Atlantic Area to the coastal regions only, led the AAC Regions to decide to give a “maritime” focus to their activities.

The Atlantic ocean is indeed a great source of wealth and regional development for the Atlantic Regions (biotechnologies, sea-energies, marine research and maritime technologies, tourism, shipping, fisheries and aquaculture etc.). The quite well-protected environment, representinga high quality of life, is also a source of attractivity for these regions. At the same time, there are a number of natural, technological and human-based threats and risks (shipwrecks, marine pollutions, impact of tourism) and trends (namely demographic) which have to be properly managed in order to avoid spoiling this source of wealth and use it in a sustainable way.

The European Commission Green Paper on a Future EU maritime policy shows how difficult it is to find relevant and effective ways to work on the maritime dimension, since it is tightly linked to a wide range of land-based activities and stakeholders. Nevertheless, the scale of “maritime basins” was highlighted by the CPMR as a relevant implementation and action scale of a maritime policy, namely to coordinate public policies.

One of the AAC challenges is thus to find the right way of working together, on cross-cutting sea-related issues.

Towards a more coordinated and knowledge-based work:

This focus on sea-related issues requires an integrated approach, at least a very well coordinated one, as well as relevant, updated information on the ground realities of the regions. The creation of the coordination group is one of the tools which will help reaching a good level of coordination. Moreover, a huge “economic intelligence” work is being prepared by the Executive Secretariat to make available economic, social, environmental data on the Atlantic Regions.

New cooperation projects - better partnerships for more concrete outputs:

Transnational cooperation is, by nature, quite different from cross-border, proximity cooperation. While the latter has got concrete results on the ground, transnational cooperation is rather based on networking and soft activities. However, the need for more concrete results is commonly agreed among the Atlantic stakeholders.

In the new projects under preparation, the partners especially work on the quality of the partnership, which is an essential element of projects. A good partnership, involving the competent actors, will indeed allow better reaching concrete outputs.

4- Conclusions and Contacts

-The AAC is now a mature political network with a strong cooperation culture and numerous achievements.

-The new challenges facing the EU are facing the Atlantic Area as well. The Atlantic Regions have to enhance their contribution to the Lisbon agenda.

-The AAC is a forum which can add value to the actions of individual regions.

Note Technique du Secrétariat Général de la CRPM – Titre du document – p. 1

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