What We Do
The Assistance Mechanism for the Atlantic Action Plan, as an EU funded project, has the following goals:
- To support the governance and implementation of the Atlantic Action Plan and the involvement of relevant stakeholders, while also providing operational, logistic and administrative support to the chairmanship-in-office and the pillar coordinators.
- To support the pillar coordinators in analysing project proposals, identifying funding sources for selected projects and liaising with the coastal regions, funding authorities and other relevant bodies.
- To support the Atlantic Strategy Committee in monitoring, reporting and evaluating the initiative and action plan. It also assists with the drafting of working documents and the revision of the Atlantic action plan, which includes defining and quantifying targets, indicators and baselines if necessary.
The Assistance Mechanism team consists of a network of National Hubs operating in France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, coordinated by a central team.
Starting in 2022, the European Union committed to set up a unique assistance mechanism for the implementation of the EU sea-basin strategies covering the Atlantic, the Black Sea and the Western Mediterranean. This mechanism aims to upscale best practices and lessons learnt and optimise some common activities by facilitating synergies between sea-basins, identifying consistent policy feedback and promoting informed planning of future actions. It also allows better coordination of common tasks like communication activities, organisation of regional and national events, functioning of the maritime data hub and project data collection as well as an enhanced complementarity with other projects like BlueInvest or the Maritime Spatial Planning Assistance Mechanism supported by the European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund.
What the Atlantic Action Plan is About
- The European Commission has adopted the first Atlantic Action Plan in March 2013 to revitalize the marine and maritime economy of France, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.
- The Atlantic Action Plan’s objectives are in line with EU’s “Blue Growth” initiative which is the maritime contribution to achieving the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
- In 2017 the Atlantic Action Plan underwent a mid-term review through an independent study and a stakeholder consultation and the revised Atlantic Action Plan v2.0 was communicated to Atlantic stakeholders on July 2020.
- The revised Atlantic Action Plan v2.0 objectives are in line with the global commitments for sustainable development and are fully integrated in the European Commission’s political priorities for 2019 - 2024, notably a European Green Deal, an Economy that works for people and a stronger Europe in the world.