On September 26, a joint meeting of the PEGASO (funded under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research - FP7), SHAPE (co-funded by the EU’s IPA Adriatic Cross-border Co-operation Programme) and MAREMED (MARitime Regions co-operation for the MEDiterranean) projects took place at the PAP/RAC premises in Split to share results related to the implementation of the ICZM Protocol. Also, PERSEUS (FP7), the GEF MedPartnership, the FaceCOAST Med-Cluster and ResMAR (Network for Environmental Protection in Maritime Space) projects joined the PAP/RAC initiative to bring together all these projects implementing the ICZM Protocol. The main objective of the meeting was to share information and seek for joint activities and project outputs so as to create better synergies and coherence among the projects. This was a unique opportunity which PAP/RAC took advantage of during the Coast Day events. Also, a Bologna Charter, as a political document initiated by the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy, was briefly presented.
One of the main conclusions of the meeting was that there already existed a very good level of synergies and that although the projects capitalised on the outputs from various projects, there was still room for improvement. The workshop also recommended to use the existing PEGASO platform to which all other projects should be attached in order to facilitate the sharing of data and information with other actors, stakeholders, donors, etc. Finally, a creation of a common map with pilot projects was proposed where linkages between the projects could be seen.
A joint declaration was proposed to be drafted and shared among the partners where the common issues detected would be underlined confirming thus even stronger collaboration in the future, also vis à vis the donors and policy makers at the highest levels.
