Malta’s contribution towards the Commission’s Green Paper on EU Maritime Policy
I	Maritime affairs and ocean space
The Government of Malta welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to prepare a Green Paper addressing the maritime affairs of Europe, as it shall serve as the basis towards the development and elaboration of a holistic EU maritime policy. Indeed, this approach to maritime affairs has been advocated by Malta since 1967 when the Government of Malta drew the attention of the United Nations General Assembly to the need for a new comprehensive regime governing humankind’s activities on the oceans. This initiative, which culminated in the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, was based on the fundamental premise that all the problems of the oceans are closely inter-related and need to be considered as a whole. This holistic approach to the creation of a global maritime order is reflected in the term ‘ocean space’, devised specifically by Malta’s Permanent Representative to the UN. 
It is hoped that the Green Paper will examine and establish the benefits of coordinating and integrating the sectoral maritime policies in an effort to ensure that Europe’s maritime interests are exploited fully for the common good of its peoples. The Government of Malta is prepared to cooperate fully with other Member States to ensure that the Green Paper will lead to a healthy and constructive debate among decision-makers and stakeholders, with the aim of articulating an EU maritime policy that enjoys pan-European support and commitment.
II	The need for a holistic policy 
Fragmented approaches, closely inter-related security concerns
The European Union has numerous maritime-related programmes and directives but as approaches to maritime-related problems and opportunities they remain sector-based and fragmented. This state of affairs contrasts greatly with the closely inter-related nature of maritime-related security problems, where the very nature of the problems demands that maritime security be treated simultaneously as ecological, economic and political (including the military dimension). 
For example, the protection of fish stocks intertwines the concerns raised by the simultaneous needs to maintain biodiversity, to protect the job security of fishing communities, and to monitor the growing militarisation of the fishing industry. The ecological collapse of a coastal area would have disastrous implications for any tourist industry in the area and likely political ramifications. The ‘European’ shipping registry, now the largest in the world with the entry of Cyprus and Malta into the EU, is not just an economic fact but also has implications for the EU’s political ability to negotiate on behalf of the industry and on behalf of better environmental and safety standards. The stewardship of the resources of the seabed, like oil, necessitates policing by the forces of law and order as well as ecological precautionary measures.
The close inter-relations of security concerns thus raise a need and a challenge for a more holistic approach that: 
a.	takes a broad view of the totality of European maritime-related concerns;
b.	undertakes more integrated resource management; and 
c.	rationalises maritime-related markets, industries, negotiations (a commitment to find a common position where appropriate), fundamental and applied research and sharing of data, and governance (including the policing of the seas by the forces of law and order). 
Such a holistic approach would enhance not only security but also European competitiveness by embarking upon economies of scale and effort.
Opportunities of a knowledge-based economy
The opportunities offered by a knowledge-based economy for maritime affairs also indicate the advantages of a more holistic approach.
First, new technologies open up new areas of endeavour: they can be used to enhance risk management in unprecedented ways; research on and the development of the technology itself can promote a comparative European advantage in the relevant expertise; and the new technologies themselves increase knowledge of what resources the marine environment has to offer, broadening traditional understanding and opening up new areas of exploration and exploitation. Being new areas, however, the most rational use of effort and resources would be a coordinated, consolidated, and shared precautionary approach.
Second, the knowledge-based economy itself permits better rationalisation of efforts and resources. The networking form of organisation permitted by ICT allows for holistic approaches that harmonise standards while respecting the particularity of different sets of regional concerns and actors (State and non-State). 
III	Fundamental principles of a maritime policy
The institutional needs and challenges outlined above suggest that the fundamental principles that ought to guide a holistic policy should themselves be informed by three views of the sea:
a.	a kaleidoscopic view that recognises particularity;
b.	a microscopic view that recognises regional and global underlying conditions and processes, even if they might be giving rise to different outcomes; and 
c.	a telescopic view that recognises the interdependence of Europe’s waters with the waters of non-EU states and high seas, even in those cases where the European maritime interest is in an area that is geographically remote. 
In this light, it is proposed that the following fundamental principles should be included among those that guide the policy:
1.	the European maritime interest should embrace the maritime-related aspects of a knowledge-based economy, risk management and global connectivity;
2.	it should be aimed at enhancing the European maritime economy in a sustainable manner; 
3.	it should foster maritime security, including the good order and peace in European waters; 
4.	it should promote the adoption and enforcement of international treaties to ensure a stable and safe maritime order, and therefore it is important that it should foster the development of European maritime policies within the existing international maritime regulatory process, such as IMO and UNCLOS; 
5.	it should take into account the regional, State, and coastal particularities of maritime Europe. In this respect attention should be given to the current regional seas initiatives (e.g. the Mediterranean Action Plan), which could also provide a model for establishing cooperation with non-Member States (see also sections IV and V below);   
6.	it should recognise the maritime interests of landlocked EU Member-States; and
7.	it should ensure the full protection of European maritime interests in the oceans, beyond European waters, and polar icecaps.
IV	Subsidiarity, proportionality and solidarity in a maritime context
Subsidiarity and high seas 
The holistic pursuit of the European maritime interest will often require the governance of high seas beyond European waters. However, waters that lie beyond national jurisdictions have two implications for exercise of subsidiarity. First, with high seas it is not clear what the appropriate level of European decision-taking is – pan-European or national or both. Second, the governance of high seas would need to involve any non-Member States that also have a stake in the region. These two difficulties can both be addressed by the setting up of regional instruments that include regional non-EU States. Yet this would imply that there will be cases where the effective implementation of the European maritime policy requires cooperation with non-EU States.	
Regional governance and non-EU States
In a marine setting, regional regulation need not come at the expense of economic competitiveness. On the contrary, it might sometimes be the most rational way of pursuing national competitiveness. In certain regions of Europe, where there is a long-standing tradition of cooperation, for example in the North Sea, considerable regional initiatives have led to the rational exploitation of resources in European and neighbouring waters. 
Unfortunately, in other regions of Europe, such cooperative approaches to regional problems have not yet evolved. One such region is the Mediterranean, where a regional approach to governance would encourage and facilitate the rational and sustainable exploration, exploitation, conservation and management of national resources and other possible economic activities such as the production of energy from the sea, currents and winds.	
Environmental initiatives, proportionality and solidarity
A common European maritime policy would face similar problems to those outlined above with respect to the protection and preservation of the marine environment. The establishment of ecological protection zones under national jurisdictions is an important first step but is unlikely to be as effective as desired. For the protective standards and interventions to be proportionate to the challenge, the States adjacent to waters under national jurisdictions, whether EU Member-States or not, would need to subscribe to similar standards. Thus, it would be desirable to encourage the creation of a regional ecological protection zone.
The creation of such a regional zone, however, raises the question not only of subsidiarity but also of solidarity. Compliance with high environmental standards is sometimes, at least in the short-term, prohibitively costly for certain States. In such cases, the use of solidarity funds to aid States participating in regional governance, even if they are not Member or Candidate States, should be considered. 
V	Organisational challenges and considerations
In view of the particularities of each European maritime neighbourhood, and the special challenges of the marine context for policy, special consideration needs to be given to the identity, functions and priorities of the institutional implementation of the policy.
Identity and functions
The kind of dialogue and management that the policy would call for suggests that a network might be the most accommodating form of organisation. The basis of the network(s) would be as a specific implementation of the kind of regional cooperation envisaged by Article 123 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The network would envisage a special relationship with neighbouring non-EU Member States that includes the possibility of undertaking activities jointly.
The functions of the network would be, where appropriate:
a.	to consolidate the activities of the Union and of Member States, 
b.	to coordinate existing activities, and 
c.	to set up regional institutions for the governance of activities that require such institutions but do not yet have them. One implication of these functions would be that the sensitivities of seas like the Baltic and the Mediterranean would be addressed, but in a manner that was tailored for the particular sensitivity of each sea.
For example, in the Mediterranean a new regional network would facilitate integrated resource management by involving all Mediterranean and Black Sea States. The network would seek to bring together the management of:
1.	fisheries (consolidating the work of the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean (GFCM) and other existing institutions responsible for aquaculture, with the aims of the Union’s Common Fisheries Policy serving as a model);
2.	shipping (consolidating the work of the IMO and furthering the goals of UNCLOS);
3.	marine and coastal environmental protection (consolidating the work of the Mediterranean Action Plan and UNEP in this regard); and
4.	marine scientific research policies (consolidating the work of institutions like the Mediterranean Science Commission (CIESM), within the perspectives of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)).
Priorities 
Section IV above suggested that there is a European interest, for the sake of the very aims and objectives of a holistic policy, in engaging with neighbouring non-Member States. Hence, among the various priorities that call for consideration, the reaching of agreements with such non-Member States should perhaps be highlighted. 
If there is broad agreement about the urgency of this priority, the reaching of such agreements might be facilitated if the Union’s development aid and investment funds gave preference to regional marine undertakings. 
VI	A new narrative for Europe
A conclusion is perhaps the place where a speculative assessment of the place of the sea in European affairs can be offered – if only to stimulate debate that would clarify the issues.
If the sea is beginning to command European attention, this is because it has retained its importance for communication and trade while becoming increasingly important for new forms of production of food, wealth and knowledge. This growing importance has been accompanied by a corresponding demographic shift: the previously impoverished, peripheral coastal areas have become the most densely populated, following the remarkable growth of mass tourism, not only but not least in the Mediterranean. 
Arguably, a historic transition is underway that is comparable to the earlier transition from agrarianism to industrialism. If so, it is worth recalling that that earlier transition had profound implications for power and culture, which post-1945 European initiatives and institution-building, emerging out of the industrial economy based on coal and steel of the continental heartland, and political tensions and violence related to that economy, sought to address by tackling problems of governance, competition and resources in novel ways. A European approach to the governance of the sea, one that is institutionally innovative and aimed at enabling greater prosperity and dialogue within regions sometimes fraught with tension, would both hark back to the initial impulse on which the Union is founded and represent a significant 21st century development.