Public Consultation on the European Commission Green Paper entitled “Marine Knowledge 2020: from seabed mapping to ocean forecasting” is open until 15 December 2012.

The idea behind this paper is the need to unlock the economic potential of Europe’s wealth of marine observations. With the ‘Marine Knowledge 2020′ the COM aims to “provide a unifying framework for all ongoing activities on marine observation within the EU. This would provide the knowledge base to facilitate the growth of a sustainable, job-creating ‘blue economy’ in marine and maritime sectors by improving competitiveness and efficiency of industry, public authorities and researchers”.

As part of this initiative the COM is eager to involve the private sector, since they are already obliged to collect data as part of impact assessments.

These data are now handed in to the licencing authority involved. In the green paper it is suggested that “once the license has been granted, there is no competitive disadvantage in releasing these data into the public domain”.

In addition, it is also suggested to extend reporting obligations, under certain circumstances, once the licence has been granted.

November 28, 2012