Working in unison for the Atlantic Ocean - Main contents

Three years ago, right in the middle of the economic crisis, the European Commission and the five EU States with an Atlantic coastline committed themselves to invigorating the "blue economy" while keeping the marine environment healthy.

The starting point for this was awareness that it is better to face the challenges of the Atlantic together rather than separately. This means making sure that the individual regions and nations lashed by the Atlantic learn from each other's experience and complement each other's' actions.

In Dublin today, Croke Park is hosting the third Atlantic Stakeholders' conference. As part of this it is my honour to hand out the first Atlantic Project Awards. They are designed to honour outstanding projects that are implementing the Atlantic Action Plan.

There will be awards for environmentally sound projects, for schemes that connect people in sparsely populated areas, and a special international award for cooperation. And we will be able to award our outstanding innovation in a new energy source: wave and tidal.

The Atlantic has become the world's innovation centre for clean energy from the seas. Portugal's Windfloat was the world's first pre-commercial floating wind turbine. MeyGen Limited intends to deploy up to 398 megawatts of tidal stream turbines off the north coast of Scotland. And several tidal projects will be deployed in France in the coming years. Meanwhile, employment in offshore wind energy is growing at an average of 30% a year. Electricity from wind and sun is as competitive as that from fossil fuel. The EU is moving towards a more market-based technology-neutral approach for new installations. The Atlantic seaboard is opening a whole new front on renewable energy.

But probably the biggest milestone in ecosystem protection has been the EU Marine Spatial Planning Directive of 2014. This obliges authorities to take into account all human activities when allocating space in their own waters. The protection of the ecosystems and the people that depend on them has been further reinforced through the "Copernicus programme" which helps track surface temperature, chlorophyll content or ice coverage. And importantly this year, the first complete map of seabed habitats has been compiled through the European Marine Observation and Data Network. We can now analyse the possible impact of fishing on marine habitats and also predict risks and threats more accurately.

The UK Meteorological Office reports that the new bathymetric data from the Network "massively improved" how we predict storm surges. Better forecasts and mapping not only facilitate ecosystem protection; they also help business by reassuring investors.

EU funding has contributed. In the two years 2014-2015, €120 million from the EU's research programmes were specifically allocated to the Atlantic. Work is underway in Dublin to increase the port's capacity and accommodate larger ships. In Spain, EU regional funds are being combined with the European Fund for Strategic Investment to improve land connectivity in key ports. In France the beautiful Arcachon area is open to cyclists, who can stop to visit local fishermen on their boats or oyster producers in their farms and taste their products. These are just a few of the projects that have seen the light since that common commitment was undertaken.

All of this activity will be celebrated in Croke Park today. I am proud to be part of this network.