Economic & Social Analysis

The revitalised OSPAR Intersessional correspondence group on economic and social analysis (ICG-ESA) held its first meeting in Brussels on Tuesday 27 October 2015. The meeting was held back to back with the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive working group on economic and social analysis (WG-ESA) to maximise the productivity of the experts.

The need for the re-establishment of the group arises from the recognition by OSPAR Contracting Parties that the forthcoming Intermediate Assessment in 2017 and the next EU MSFD initial assessment in 2018 would benefit from a more coherent economic description of the marine environment at OSPAR level. The group is aware of other work taking place at EU level and at contracting party/member state level on similar topics and will seek to ensure that their work will not replicate these activities. During the meeting the group held an open discussion on areas of work that would be most useful to support contracting parties and on the constraints that exist around this work; notably around timing, data availability and resolution and methodologies. The group also discussed the most practical way of supporting the OSPAR Committees and their subsidiary bodies and how current and future work on new measures could benefit from economic guidance and advice.

^{Text: Richard Cronin (Ireland)}