Brussels,

MARE.C1/IS

To Permanent Representations to EU

Member State Experts,
Member State Expert Group on Maritime Policy (Annex)

Subject: 8^th Meeting of the Member State Expert Group on Integrated Maritime Policy

As was indicated during the Friends of the Presidency meeting on 23 September 2010[1] and the last meeting of the Member States Expert Group on 8 November 2010, part of the next meeting of our Expert Group will be devoted to a follow-up to the "marine knowledge 2020" Communication COM(2010)461[2]. Our intention is to devote the morning session to general maritime policy matters and the afternoon to marine knowledge. Whilst we already have a group of independent experts to advise us on marine knowledge, we also wish to offer an opportunity for representatives of Member States to express their opinions. This consultation is one of the measures proposed in 'marine knowledge 2020".

In this afternoon "knowledge" session we will outline our plans for the next years in terms of projects, assessments and possible legislation and then open the discussion to experts nominated by yourselves. In addition to providing an opinion on our plans, they should also summarise briefly their own national efforts to ensure better stewardship and dissemination of marine data. The aim will be fine-tune the actions proposed by the Commission and to stimulate a better general awareness of how different countries are confronting similar challenges.

We therefore urge you to choose experts for this session with a good understanding of the organisation of maritime knowledge in your country and the authority to provide feedback on the detailed planning of the Commission.

Could you therefore send the contact details of an expert to represent your position to ec-maritime-emodnet-expertsec [dot] europa [dot] eu (ec-maritime-emodnet-experts[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu) by 15 January 2011 so that we can distribute the background information to them.

This is not a formal invitation to the meeting. This will follow later when we have confirmation of the room booking. Our plan is for the meeting to take place in the second half of February, 2011. Although you will certainly wish to send a different expert to represent you in the morning than in the afternoon, we will only be able to reimburse the expenses of one expert per Member State for the meeting as a whole. Additional experts may attend without reimbursement.

Yours sincerely,

Ernest Penas Lado

Annex List of Member State Experts

[1]https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/1308

[2]https://maritime-forum.ec.europa.eu/node/1305