34th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Bonn Agreement
The 34th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Bonn Agreement was held in Dublin, Ireland, on 20-22 September 2022 and was chaired by Mr. Mattias Lindholm from Sweden.
The meeting was opened by Ms. Hildegarde Naughton, Minister of the Department of Transport of Ireland, who recalled it was the second Bonn meeting held in Ireland since the 2010 Ministerial Meeting. She highlighted that the close connection and cooperation between Contracting Parties had helped regional and national development of protection of the marine environment, and response to pollution. Representatives from Belgium, Denmark, the European Union, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom attended the meeting.
Bonn welcomed the official accession of Spain to the Bonn Agreement and agreed to publish a consolidated version of the Agreement on the webpage.
Seven Contracting Parties (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the European Union, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway) had already notified the approval of the Decision on the extension of the scope of application of the Agreement with a view to cooperation on surveillance in respect of the requirements of Annex VI to the MARPOL Convention. The remaining Contracting Parties agreed to encourage their ratification process. The Terms of Reference of the MARPOL Annex VI Working Groups addressing strategic and operational issues (MAVI-SOWG) and technical matters (MAVI-TWG) were adopted to reflect the tiered approach of addressing, firstly, the quick-wins actions and, in a later stage, those actions requiring extra funding. Bonn also discussed the participation of experts within the Working Groups.
Bonn acknowledged the importance of the Oil Spill Identification Network (OSINet) in providing mutual assistance and promoting quality assurance. The Network had been successfully running for more than 15 years and grown into a worldwide group of experts with more than 45 laboratories participating from over 25 countries. In order to cope with this enlargement and the lack of additional co-convenors, the Terms of Reference of this group were adopted keeping the Network within the Bonn Agreement framework. A Co-convenor was still needed to manage OSINet.
Bonn agreed that a working group would look at the level of commitment of Contracting Parties regarding the regional priorities and how these could be reflected in the next strategic action plan. It was recognised that work needed to start on the drafting on the next action plan and a roadmap was adopted.
Belgium volunteered to host the joint NSN and OTSOPA Seminar on Maritime Environmental Crimes in November 2023 to cover enforcement cases related to all MARPOL Annexes and publicity of investigations and convictions.
The meeting agreed that the Bonn Agreement data on aerial surveillance would be made available on the webpage; further work would follow to explore more advance options including an interactive map tool.
It was noted that the European Union and the United Kingdom would be chairing OTSOPA and Bonn respectively in the next two working cycles. The next Bonn meeting would be held in the Netherlands in September 2023 and Ireland was thanked for hosting the 2022 meeting.