The Steering Committee of the ENI SEIS II South Support Mechanism held its first meeting jointly with the seventh meeting of the H2020 Review and Monitoring Group from 12 to 14 December 2016 in Athens. It brought together representatives from Mediterranean countries, namely Albania, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey, along with the European Commission, the EEA, UNEP/MAP and other regional bodies.

National focal points of the ENI SEIS II South Support Mechanism, the H2020 Review and Monitoring Group and the MED POL programme (the marine pollution and assessment and control component of MAP) attended the joint meeting, which aimed to strengthen synergies between the parties and their initiatives. A number of regional initiatives and programmes were presented, giving an overview of the state of play in the Mediterranean and identifying ways to further enhance coordination, common understanding and commitment in the field of monitoring, review and assessment based on SEIS principles.  

Representatives from participating countries presented the progress made in the project first work package, which aims to provide in-country support. All countries have developed, or are in the process of developing, their national work plans and listing priority activities in pollution assessment and data- and information-sharing systems. The national work plans will be further developed, finalised and validated by February 2017.

The participants highlighted the efforts needed for coordinated assessment programmes and reporting, as well as further streamlining of environmental indicators. Therefore, an ad hoc temporary working group of volunteers from some participating countries was formed with a view to identifying and selecting a common core set of indicators that will assist countries to respect the reporting obligations. As different sets of indicators have been developed at different levels, the group will base its work on the list of common NAP indicators developed by the UN Environment Mediterranean Action Plan, which are mainly based on the indicators selected by the countries in their NAPs, with links to H2020, the Integrated Monitoring and Assessment Programme and related assessment criteria, and the Sustainable Development Goals indicators. 

Divided into four groups for a dynamic interactive session, the participants reflected on the need for the report on the development of the second H2020 indicator-based assessment to be published in 2019, and shared a number of recommendations addressing different aspects of its preparation and design.

Link to the Horizon 2020 initiative page