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The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, as Chair of Ireland’s Marine Coordination Group, today welcomed the hosting by the European Commission, of Ireland’s consultation workshop event in Dublin on the Atlantic Strategy and its associated Action Plan. The Atlantic Action Plan, adopted in 2013, encourages Member States to work together in maritime areas where they were previously working individually and provides a platform to share information, costs, results and best practices, as well as to generate ideas for further areas of cooperation in the area of maritime activities.

The 2018 mid-term review of the Atlantic Action Plan found that, while capturing a range of needs and challenges observed across the Atlantic area, the plan has certain limitations. To address these weaknesses, five stakeholder consultation workshops have been arranged - one in each of the five Atlantic Member States, namely Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom. These workshops aim to tackle various areas in preparation for updating the actions in the plan.

The Irish consultation workshop organised in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Marine Coordination Group and the Marine Institute is supported by the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) of the European Commission and EY Consultants. The workshop will gather experts from across the five EU Member States who will share their vision and experience in developing projects and initiatives in the areas of the marine bioeconomy, including the strategic use of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, short sea shipping (SSS) and smart ports in the Atlantic basin. The expert group will aim to collect ideas about joint and collaborative initiatives and actions in these domains to progress the new Atlantic Action Plan. The workshop will also help collect ideas on how to increase involvement of regional and local policy-makers in the governance and implementation of the Atlantic Action Plan and the Atlantic Strategy.