The European Environment Agency (EEA) and the United Nations Environment Programme/ Mediterranean Action Plan (UNEP/MAP) have concluded the final draft of the EEA-UNEP/MAP 2nd Horizon 2020 indicator based assessment report and launched a country consultation on it’s the Executive summary ‘“Horizon 2020 Synthesis.”

The EEA-UNEP/MAP 2nd Horizon 2020 indicator based assessment is the key outcome of the joint efforts by EEA-UNEP/MAP to review and monitor progress toward a cleaner Mediterranean, based on countries’ inputs and key findings of various regional projects. The report builds upon a systematic review and assessment focusing on pollution pressures affecting the Mediterranean environmental status. This process is carried out in the framework of the Union for the Mediterranean Horizon 2020 Review and Monitoring group and the support mechanism of the ENI SEIS II South EU funded Project. In addition to the regional assessment studies carried out by UNEP/MAP, more specifically State of Environment and Development Report (UNEP/MAP-Plan Blue, 2019/2020) and Quality Status Report 2017, the synthesis report integrates a number of assessments such as “The European environment – state and outlook 2020” and several technical reports providing the latest inputs from ENI South partner countries.

The EEA-UNEP/MAP report represents a tangible and pragmatic contribution towards the evaluation of the regional efforts in protecting the Mediterranean Sea from pollution, as part of the set of activities coordinated by the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean. It also serves to inform on processes and discussions regarding the next Union for the Mediterranean post-2020 agenda. To this extent, the executive summary “Horizon 2020 Synthesis” summarises the main outcomes from the indicator-based appraisal (H2020 indicator-based technical report and national Indicator Fact sheets to be published) of the progress observed since the launch of the Horizon 2020 initiative nearly 15 years ago. It is the result of a collaborative process between EEA, UNEP/MAP and the partner countries for establishing a regular review and reporting mechanism in the Mediterranean region.

Fully recognising the diversity of stakeholders and networks that contribute to this overall review effort, this consultation process of the Horizon 2020 Synthesis report is open to the network of the ENI SEIS II South National Focal Points, the H2020 National Focal Points, the EEA/EIONET MED National Focal Points, as well as the UNEP/MAP Focal Points.

 The report is planned to be published shortly.