th 19 meeting of the WG GES 22032018

th 19 meeting of the WG GES 22/03/2018 Action points and important deadlines

Agenda Item 2 – Approval of minutes of the 18 th meeting of WG GES • Spain will send their comments on the draft minutes.

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level I – Progress on biodiversity, NIS, eutrophication and contaminants (1/3) Descriptor Task 1 Further experts nominations Further feedback to the lists 1 Contribution to the JRC’s analysis of the methods to set GES thresholds for D 1 Express interest for the technical workshop (Ispra, 29 -30 May 2018) 2 Further experts nominations Further feedback to the NIS baseline inventories 2 Technical workshop with NIS expert group – (Ispra, 31 May 2018) Express interest for the technical workshop Contributors Deadline Contact WG GES; MS experts End of March; End of April; andreas. palialexis@ec. europ a. eu WG GES, MS experts & RSCs End of March andreas. palialexis@ec. europ a. eu WG GES; MS experts End of March; 20 th April; anacristina. cardoso@ec. europa. eu WG GES, MS experts & RSCs End of March anacristina. cardoso@ec. europa. eu

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level I – Progress on biodiversity, NIS, eutrophication and contaminants (2/3) Descriptor Task Contributors RSCs Deadline Contact By mid-April rita. araujo@ec. europa. eu 5 JRC to request dataset from RSC 5 MS are invited to nominate experts. Contribution to the JRC’s coordinated work and activities related to the monitoring and assessment of eutrophication. WG GES and RSCs 20 th April; 15 th May rita. araujo@ec. europa. eu 8 Further experts nominations Further contribution to the validation of the contaminants list WG GES; MS experts End of March; 9 th April; victoria. tornero@ec. europ a. eu 8 Invitation to experts to join the wiki; Discussions on procedures for grouping of substances and contribution to further work; WG GES; MS experts End of March; Start in April; victoria. tornero@ec. europ a. eu

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level I – Progress on biodiversity, NIS, eutrophication and contaminants (3/3) • Issue about overall timeline: the Commission will come back on this issue during the next WG GES meeting in October 2018

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level II – Progress on D 10 • TG Marine Litter 2018 Annual meeting 26 -27 June 2018 in Larnaca, Cyprus (registration is open). • Back-to-back ½ day workshops on Baselines and Thresholds on 28 th June 2018. • Preparation of TG ML report on Marine Litter Thresholds (potential further workshop for finalization, end 2018). • Riverine litter: What are next steps, what is needed, who should act? Please provide input, also via delegates to TG ML annual meeting

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level III – Progress on D 11 • TG Noise will prepare a report with advice of assessment methodologies for discussion at annual meeting on 5 -6 th June 2018 in Bucharest, Romania. • To consolidate further advice to MSCG, TG Noise will organise meeting + workshop on 6 -8 th November 2018 in Brussels.

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level IV – Work on D 1 species integration • Participants are encouraged to register for two workshops organized by ICES on aggregation and extinction risks. • The Workshop on MSFD biodiversity of species D 1 aggregation (WKDIV_AGG), chaired by Anna Rindorf, Denmark, will be established and meet in ICES HQ, Copenhagen, Denmark, on 1– 4 May 2018 • The Workshop on extinction risk of MSFD biodiversity approach (WKDIV_EXTINCT), chaired by Dave Reid, Ireland, will be established and will meet in ICES HQ, Copenhagen, Denmark, on 12– 15 June 2018

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES a. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at Union level V – Future ICES requests: outline of work on seafloor integrity and D 3 • MS to comment on paper (GES_19 -2018 -06) on GES for Descriptor 1 (seabed habitats) and Descriptor 6 (sea-floor integrity) by 04 th April, so that updated paper will be presented at MSCG meeting. • Member States to comment on paper (GES_19 -2018 -05) and validate the lists of commercially exploited fish and shellfish species by 18 th May 2018 (adding additional species before the list is made available in the web reporting system).

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES b. Report on follow-up work on GES Decision at regional/subregional level • Actions on MRUs: WHAT WHEN Ask the EEA for help delimiting subdivisions 30 March 2018 Updates of Marine waters shapefiles 30 April 2018 Updates of the 4 geo. xml & Lists of MRUs (names) 30 May 2018 Updates of the MRU shapefiles 30 June 2018

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES d. Technical guidance for assessments under Article 8 • DG GES to prepare a proposal for WG GES 20 on organising the follow -up work on COM Dec based on the clarification with JRC, ICES, MS represented in DG GES and EU Commission on • ongoing EU-level work • identified technical and overarching issues so far not addressed • issues that may arise from the latest assessment experiences • Deadline for replying to questionnaire: 20 April

Agenda Item 5 – Improving determination and assessment of GES e. 2018 reporting on updates of Article 8, 9, 10: focused outputs • MS to send comments on document GES_19 -2018 -07 by 04 th April. • Update of the guidance document to be presented at the MSCG on 23 th April.

Agenda Item 6 – Information exchange a. MSFD 2018 call Stages Publication of the call Date and time or indicative period 20 th March 2018 Deadline for submitting applications 20 th June 2018 – 17 h 00 Evaluation period July – September 2018 Information to applicants 15 December the latest Signature of grant agreement October – December 2018