The first workshop, focusing on marine renewable energies, was held on 12 September in Las Palmas (Gran Canaria), in co-operation with the Maritime Cluster of the Canary Islands (CMC). By taking stock of research capacities and collaborative platforms, sharing best practice to turn ports into blue economy hubs and by exploring financial engineering, participants helped to develop marine renewable energies as an opportunity for sustainable growth in the Atlantic.

Atlantic Action Plan

The Atlantic action plan (2013) spells out how regions, port cities and the private sector can work together across borders to develop the Atlantic region’s sustainable blue economy by 2020.

Halfway through, the Commission has taken stock of its implementation and identified over 1200 projects, worth nearly EUR 6 billion investment, that supported the action plan. The plan still has potential to grow, and with the review as a basis, workshops will now further improve the plan and build its future beyond 2020.

As was the case in Las Palmas, also the other workshops will cover themes identified as highly relevant for the Atlantic blue economy, namely

• Ports as blue economy hubs
• Connectivity
• Blue bioeconomy
• Blue skills

Next stop will be Viana do Castelo in Portugal, on 28 September, followed by the workshops in Ireland (Dublin), UK (Liverpool) and France.