The 36th Meeting of the Contracting Parties to the Bonn Agreement was held on 17-19 September 2024 in Ålesund, a city in Norway where mountains and fjords meet the ocean.
The meeting was chaired by Mrs Claire Hughes from the United Kingdom and opened by Mr. Einar Vik Arset, the Director of the Norwegian Coastal Administration, who reaffirmed Norway’s commitment to continue being an active Contracting Party to this very important regional agreement. Representatives from Belgium, Denmark, the European Union, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom attended the meeting.
The main focus of the meeting was the preparation of the next Bonn Agreement Strategy which will cover a 10-year period (BAS 2025-2035), with a mid-point 5-year review. Further work needs to be done to finetune the text and draft the Implementation Plan; the latter task will be undertaken by the Working Group on Operational, Technical and Scientific Questions Concerning Counter-Pollution Activities (OTSOPA). The new strategy will follow the current Bonn Agreement Strategy Action Plan 2019-2025 and will reflect the regional priorities identified by the ad-hoc Intersessional Correspondence Group and updated in 2024. The ratification process 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 is ongoing. The two MARPOL Annex VI Working Groups addressing strategic and operational issues (MAVI-SOWG) and technical matters (MAVI-TWG) presented their work including monitoring activities and joint analysis, non-compliance cases, implications at international level and a potential project proposal on the development of a compliance monitoring strategy for MARPOL Annex VI on the Bonn Agreement area. BONN discussed the possibility of participating at the Interspill event in London in April 2025 by sharing a stand with other regional agreements at the Exhibition and presenting its work at the Conference. BONN also welcomed the progress made in developing the Bonn Agreement Data and Information System (BADIMS) platform which will be launched in 2025. The next BONN meeting will be hosted by Spain in September 2024. Mrs Claire Hughes, Director of the United Kingdom Maritime and Coastguard Agency, was thanked for her excellent chairing of the BONN meetings during the 2022-2024 meeting period. Domininc Pattison, Secretary of the Bonn Agreement, was also thanked for his commitment and dedication as this will be his final BONN meeting. |
