Welcome to the 2024 Implementation Report of the Atlantic Action Plan 2.0
In 2024, France chaired the Atlantic Strategic Committee (ASC) in accordance with the rotating presidency between the EU Member States of the Atlantic Maritime Strategy. The Atlantic area accounts for more than a third of the gross added value of the EU's blue economy, and the Atlantic Member States are key players in this, contributing to the blue component of the European Green Deal.
Read this REPORT and find in detail all the achievements of 2024.
The Ministerial Declaration adopted in Porto on 18 October 2023, during the Portuguese Presidency, aims to strengthen the response to the critical issues linked to the negative impacts of the Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, as well as the imperative of the energy and ecological transition to combat climate change and the decline in biodiversity. In line with the Ministerial Declaration, and under the motto "Navigating towards a sustainable blue future", the French Presidency was keen to promote inclusiveness, cooperation and dialogue between all the political and economic players in the Atlantic Sea basin, not forgetting its outermost regions, national authorities of the Member States, representatives of the European Commission, Atlantic regions and regional organisations. The key challenge was to make the Atlantic Basin a prosperous and resilient region to face the crucial challenges and stakes in the development of a sustainable and competitive blue economy on a sea-basin scale by sharing a joint vision and working together to build solutions to meet them.
The Presidency therefore focused its efforts in particular on making the Atlantic Action Plan 2.0 (AAP 2.0) more operational by bringing stakeholders closer together and improving coordination between them in order to implement this AAP 2.0 as closely as possible on the ground for the benefit of regional and local communities, by developing a bottom-up and multi-level approach. It also promoted dialogue around areas of cooperation of common interest between Sea Basins within the EU, in particular between the Atlantic Maritime Strategy, the Initiative for the sustainable development of the blue economy in the western Mediterranean (WestMED) and the Greater North Sea Basin Initiative (GNSBI).
Finally, it endeavoured to work towards the internationalization of the Atlantic Maritime Strategy (AMS) by opening the debate on renewed dialogue with the United Kingdom, Norway, Iceland and other third countries in the Atlantic, and by strengthening links with the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science and the All-Atlantic Ocean Research and Innovation Alliance (AAORIA).
The French presidency was delighted to be working closely throughout this year with the members of the Atlantic Strategic Committee, the Member States, the European Commission, the representatives of the Atlantic regions (Atlantic Arc Commission of the Conference of Peripheric Maritime Regions and the Atlantic Trans Network), Atlantic Cities and the Interreg Atlantic Area programme, the AAM and the Pillar Coordinators, as well as with the Portuguese co-presidency of WestMED, to ensure the success of its presidency's ambition with a view to sailing towards this sustainable blue future for the Atlantic Basin.
French Presidency of Atlantic Strategy Committee 2024
