Beneath the waves: launch of the JPI Oceans information portal on marine munitions

The co-organised by MUNIMAP partners workshop “Beneath the Waves: Confronting unexploded ordnance (UXO)” during the European Maritime Day on 31 May 2024 in Svendborg, Denmark spotlighted the new information portal, the central product of JPI Oceans‘ Knowledge Hub on Munition in the Sea.

The JPI Joint Action “Munition in the Sea”, launched in 2015, has operated since 2020 as a Knowledge Hub expert group to establish an information portal. The reasons for addressing munition in the sea are manifold. Our ocean and sea basins are littered by large quantities of conventional and chemical munition, posing health and safety risks to humans and the marine environment, as they release toxic and harmful substances.  Increasing geopolitical instabilities add further urgency to address the topic with concerted efforts by science, industry, and policy at European trans-national levels. National debates and actions accentuate the momentum. Germany is investing €100 million in a programme starting in July 2024 to develop and test technologies for the remediation of munition from dump sites in the Baltic Sea.

The European Maritime Day 2024 now offered an excellent opportunity to share the outcomes of that process by organising a workshop on the topic of unexploded ordnance (UXO), centred around the formal launch of the portal. The workshop included two introductory talks, followed by a panel discussion with:

• Jella Kandziora, science-policy advisor at JPI Oceans,
• Jens Greinert, Professor at GEOMAR in Germany, leader of the MinE-SwEEPER
• Claus Böttcher, expert lead of the Knowledge Hub information portal,
• Agnieszka Jędruch, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Oceanology of the Polish Academy of Sciences,
• Christos Economou, DG Mare European Commission.

Mr Economou confirmed that UXO is a pressing political issue and already high on the European agenda. The EU Commission will continue pursuing its effort to enable a thriving blue economy by ensuring safe space for much-needed offshore infrastructures such as submarine cables and wind farms. Against this backdrop, Mr. Economou announced that the EU will launch in 2024 a new call to develop and test munition remediation technologies with a budget of €5 million.

Programme Manual Online

Choose