EU launches marine strategy without legally binding goals

摘要

Amid clamour from environmentalists that his proposals would prove "desperately inadequate" European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas formally launched a new integrated marine policy strategy on 24 October that pledges a raft of measures designed to ensure all of Europe's seas and oceans are safe, clean and healthy by 2021. The Thematic strategy on the protection and conservation of the marine environment is the second of seven thematic strategies that the European Commission has pledged to publish under the EU's 6th Environmental Action Programme (6EAP). It is set out as a communication accompanied by a proposal for a marine framework directive and an associated impact assessment which the Commission says together will form a key component of a maritime policy it will propose next year.