The recently approved and CEI-led NAMIRS project kicked off its activities with a first online consortium meeting on 10 March, setting the ground for collaboration between seven partners from Italy, Croatia and Slovenia.
NAMIRS, which stands for North Adriatic Maritime Incident Response System, is funded under the European Commission Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations –(DG ECHO), following the project NAMIRG, to help prevent and support a coordinated cross-border response to marine pollution in the North Adriatic Sea due to at-sea and on-shore incidents such as oil spills which have devastating environmental and economic consequences.
Regional cooperation and cross-sectorial coordination will be reinforced by identifying, upgrading and integrating the knowledge, tools and resources available within the NAMIRS partnership.
Project partners will elaborate, in the coming months, specific Guidelines for the revision and update of the Sub-Regional Contingency Plan for the Adriatic Sea, which had already been signed by the three partner countries in 2005 but never entered into force. Standard Operating Procedures for first responders will be also outlined, which will be the object of a dedicated common Training programme later validated in a simulation exercise at-sea that will be organised in the Gulf of Trieste.
This cooperative process will result in smoother communication and interoperability through the establishment of a ready-for-operations sub-regional mechanism at prompt disposal of North Adriatic countries and the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, easily transferable to the other Adriatic-Ionian countries.
The CEI – Executive Secretariat in its capacity as lead partner, will be responsible for the overall project management and coordination of administrative, financial and communication activities. The partners are meeting again on 31 March 2022 to launch the initiative to the public, during a press conference organised at the CEI premises in Trieste.
NAMIRS will be running from March 2022 to March 2024 with a total budget of 807, 835.00 EUR
For more info: marconato@cei.int