The Western Mediterranean coastal States used a harmonised self-assessment tool to evaluate their national contingency plan to respond to marine pollution – Apr 24, 2019

The Sub-regional Workshop on the assessment of the level of oil spill response planning and readiness management was organised by the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) (Valletta, Malta, 24-26 April 2019), in the framework of the Western Mediterranean Region Marine Oil and HNS Pollution Cooperation (West MOPoCo) project, co-financed by the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO).

Eighteen (18) participants, Algeria, France, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Spain and Tunisia, representing national competent authorities in charge of the preparedness for and response to marine pollution from ships. In addition other members of the Project Consortium, amongst which  including the Centre of Documentation, Research and Experimentation on Accidental Water Pollution (Cedre), the Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA), and  the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF) participated to the workshop.

The Workshop allowed to achieve the first objectives of the Project:

(a)    acquire hands-on working knowledge of the use of the “Oil Spill Response Planning and Readiness Assessment Manual” and its accompanying Excel™ tool (RETOSTM), to identify and analyse gaps in national oil preparedness and response programs; and

(b)    apply a harmonised and clear approach, leading to high-quality assessment of national oil spill contingency plans, across the Western Mediterranean region.

The event also included technical support provided by Sea Alarm Foundation, which introduced its Self-assessment Tool for oiled wildlife preparedness. The agenda of this Workshop is available on the following link.

The participants acknowledged the practicality of the tool, which enables the identification of needs at national and sub-regional level, and recommended that such a workshop is organised in other areas of the Mediterranean region so as to extend a harmonised approach to the entire region.

With the technical assistance of the West MOPoCo Project, each beneficiary country will produce national self-assessment reports including gap analysis, performance analysis and an improvement programme of their respective national oil spill contingency planning.

The next step will be to organise a national event in each beneficiary country involving all national competent authorities so as to discuss the outcome of the assessment and to agree on the way forward to implement the improvement programme.