Portal of the Directorate General for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs

The European Commission has proposed an ambitious strategy to protect more effectively the marine environment across Europe.EU Marine StrategyThe Thematic Strategy on the Protection and Conservation of the Marine Environment aims to achieve good environmental status of the EU's marine waters by 2021 and to protect the resource base upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend. The Marine Strategy will constitute the environmental pillar of the future maritime policy the European Commission is working on, designed to achieve the full economic potential of oceans and seas in harmony with the marine environment.

EUROSION is a project commissioned by the General Directorate Environment of the European Commission, which was won by a consortium led by the National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management of the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. The implementation of the project started in January 2002. The project is expected to achieve its objectives by May 2004 and has a budget of five million euros.

SISMER is the Designated National Oceanographic Data Centre for France (French NODC) for the International Oceanographic Data Exchange program (IODE) of UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, following the former Bureau National des Données Océaniques (BNDO). This national data banking activity dates from 1968, and covers the fields of marine physics, chemical, underway geophysics and general information on French oceanographic cruises and data sets. Information in both French and English.

The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international marine research program that explores the Earth's history and structure as recorded in seafloor sediments and rocks, and monitors subseafloor environments. IODP builds upon earlier successes of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) and Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), which revolutionized our view of Earth history and global processes through ocean basin exploration. IODP greatly expands the reach of these previous programs by using multiple drilling platforms, including riser, riserless, and mission-specific, to achieve its scientific goals. The program's principal themes are outlined in the Initial Science Plan: "Earth, Oceans and Life: Scientific Investigations of the Earth System Using Multiple Drilling Platforms and New Technologies."

Ocean-floor drilling provides essential material for the study of climate change, bio-diversity, geophysics and geodynamics. ECORD has been formed to join the international Integrated Ocean Drilling Program - IODP under a single European banner alongside U.S.A, Japan, Korea and China and to provide support for mission-specific platforms (MSPs).

ICES is the organisation that coordinates and promotes marine research in the North Atlantic. This includes adjacent seas such as the Baltic Sea and North Sea.