Peers Call For North Sea Conference

Increased co-operation between governments is necessary to manage industrial and environmental pressures in the North Sea, peers have found.

A ministerial conference of the North Sea should be established, bringing together politicians from surrounding countries to consider the energy, shipping and environmental activities in the basin.

The House of Lords European Union committee said the North Sea is the lifeblood of more than 60 million people'' who live on or near its shores and contributes around 150 billion euros (£107 billion) to the economies of surrounding countries.

But the peers warned the North Sea is in a state of environmental degradation'' and it isone of the most industrialised seas in the world''.

While ships queue to progress through its southern channels, navigable space allocated to wind farms could, according to some estimates, increase 50-fold within just a few years,'' the report said.

There was no existing body or mechanism'' with a broad enough remit tofacilitate the political co-operation required to make the necessary step change in the management of the North Sea basin'', the peers found.

They recommended that the UK should convene a North Sea ministerial conference to develop a holistic approach to all economic and environmental issues affecting the North Sea''.

Baroness Scott, chairman of the House of Lords EU Sub-Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries, Environment and Energy, said: If the North Sea is left unco-ordinated, the conflict between environmental sustainability and economic growth will intensify.

To avoid that, and to strike the right balance, we will need a co-ordinated and strategic approach. Despite some excellent ad hoc initiatives, we do not feel that such an approach is in place at the moment.

We want the UK Government to take the lead in convening a ministerial conference of North Sea states to deliver the urgently needed strategic and political vision for the North Sea.''