3. The competent authority shall require a certificate of safety and fitness for the purpose (hereinafter referred to as ‘certificate’) issued by a recognised body to be submitted in respect of production platforms, mobile offshore drilling units, offshore storage facilities, offshore loading systems and pipelines and in respect of such other installations as may be specified by the Contracting Party.

8. Calls for an extension of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive to cover all offshore projects phases (exploratory and operational) and calls for specific requirements for EIAs in the case of deep water, complex wells, challenging drilling conditions, and transfer of oil/gas by underwater pipelines located on/under the seabed; considers, furthermore, that the Commission should ensure that EIAs for offshore projects approved by national authorities also cover the procedures operators must follow during decommissioning; calls on the Commission to reassess the legal provisions on EIAs and lay down therein that environment ...[+++]al impact assessment procedures must be entrusted to experts who are independent of the client;

26. Calls for an extension of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive to cover all offshore projects phases (exploratory and operational) and calls for specific requirements for EIAs in the case of deep water, complex wells and challenging drilling conditions, and transfer of oil/gas by underwater pipelines located on/under the seabed; considers, furthermore, that the Commission should ensure that EIAs for offshore projects approved by national authorities also cover the procedures operators must follow during decommissioning; calls on the Commission to reassess the legal provisions on EIAs and lay down therein that environ ...[+++]mental impact assessment procedures must be entrusted to experts who are independent from the client;

The threats are often cross-border and essentially come from overfishing, destructive fishing techniques, the disposal at sea of waste and pollutants from the coast, noise pollution caused by vessels, maritime transport infrastructures, degassing and underwater acoustic activity, but also from invasive species, the impact of climate change, gravel extraction, drilling for oil and coastal urbanisation.

The changes introduced by the common position are intended to broaden the scope of the draft Regulation to cover other vessels, such as high-speed craft, mobile drilling platforms and tourist submarines, and the gross tonnage of ships.

The minister may permit the use of directional drilling equipment, in the case of sub-seabed drilling for hydrocarbons, from a point outside a marine conservation area, to a point below the seabed, within the marine conservation area, where the practices are determined by the minister to not pose any serious threat to the existing ecosystem of that marine conservation area.