12 December 2020, A successful meeting was held in the headquarter of the National Agency of Environment Protection (ANPE) in Tunis-Tunisia; between Mr. Samir Khedhira; General Controller Expert and REMPEC Focal Point and Houcine Mejri; MOIG Director.

The main purpose of this meeting was to discuss the possibility to organize a joint workshop in the form of one-day training session on Readiness Evaluation Tool for Oil Spills (RETOS); during the first semester of 2021.

RETOS is a part of the Western Mediterranean Region Marine Oil and HNS Pollution Cooperation (West MOPoCo) project; initiated in 2019
The West MOPoCo Project supports Algeria, France, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Spain and Tunisia in collaboration with Monaco in strengthening their cooperation in the field of preparedness for and response to oil and Highly Noxious Substances (HNS) marine pollution and in improving the quality and interoperability of their response capacities.
The project is implemented through an inter-regional effort, including the participation of the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC), the Bonn Agreement for the North Sea and the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) for the Baltic Sea. The project benefits from the technical support of expert partner institutions such as Cedre, ITOPF and the Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA).
West MOPoCo is two-year project (2019-2020) co-financed by the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism of DG ECHO. Nerveless, issues related to COVID-19 pandemic have slowed down the progress of the project. The completion date is scheduled now for the end of April 2021.
We were very delighted with the outcome of this meeting; the ANPE representative expressed its full support to provide a training session on RETOS for MOIG members. This training will be a good opportunity for members to know how to assess their Oil Spill Contingency Plans, to identify gaps and undertake the necessary corrective actions.

This workshop will further strengthen relationship and cooperation between MOIG and ANPE as well as advance issues of comment interest related to protection of the Mediterranean Sea against oil spill pollution. More details on this training will be provided to you in the near future.

The Management Committee would like to thank ANPE for agreeing to provide technical support to MOIG.