Meeting on regional cooperation of the Adriatic Sea Countries

The meeting in Postojna (Slovenia) held on September 22 2006 in premises of the Institute for karst researches was organized by the Minister of environment and spatial planning of Republic of Slovenia, Mr. Janez Podobnik, for occasion of overtaking the role of the two-year chairmanship of Slovenia within the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) project.
Upon invitation of minister Podobnik, the meeting was attended by representative of EC DG Environment, Mr. Andrew Murphy, coordinator of the UNEP/MAP, Mr. Paul Mifsud, Executive Secretary of ICPDR, Mr. Philip Weller, Secretary of the Sava Commission, PhD Dejan Komatina, as well as representatives of the Adriatic Sea countries.

Main goal of the meeting was presentation of similar regional, sub-regional initiatives (ICPDR and the Sava Commission), whose experiences would be used as grounds for development of the Strategy for the Adriatic Sea Basin. Secretary of the Sava Commission, Mr. Dejan Komatina, presented the Sava Commission by emphasizing following three aspects:
  • comprehensiveness of the scope of work of the Sava Commission involving the elements of sustainability (protection of water and aquatic eco-system) and elements of development (navigation, other ways of water utilization, as well as protection against detrimental effects of waters),
  • sub-regional level the Sava Commission functions on, which provides reaching the “better resolution” of results of its work in comparison to regional initiatives,
  • pragmatic and practical character of work of the Sava Commission, considering the concreteness of results of its work (integrated plans, projects, protocols, regulations, unique system, river information system, including electronic navigation maps, and system for surveillance and alarming, etc.), as well as results that the Sava river basin countries directly benefit from.