Channel Arc Manche Integrated Strategy (CAMIS)

The CAMIS project was initiated under the Arc Manche partnership and follows on from the previous EMDI (Espace Manche Development Initiative) project. CAMIS aims to encourage Franco-British cooperation and highlight the strategic interests and the specific characteristics of the Channel area.
It followed on from the EMDI (Espace Manche Development Initiative) project, which, between 2004 and 2008, enabled the Channel area to be acknowledged as a relevant area for co-operation at European level and showcased the possibility for the Channel area to be positioned as a maritime basin to experiment the Integrated Maritime Policy promoted by the European Commission.

The CAMIS project develops a series of tools to promote sustainable maritime governance of the Channel area including:

- an Integrated Maritime Strategy defining objectives and detailing actions to achieve them;
- a Cross-Channel Forum to pilot a new joint approach to dealing with issues of common interest;
- a Cross-Channel Resource Centre to highlight key stakeholders and projects, to enable best practice to be shared and to make data and recommendations available to policy makers;
- a Cross-Channel Scientific Committee made up of a multidisciplinary group of experts.

The project carries concrete actions around 4 themes:

- Workforce development : promoting mutual understanding of the French and British training systems, identifying and exchanging best practice, developing concrete cooperation projects;
- Innovation and maritime clusters: exchanging best practice and identifying possibilities for cross-border clusters around 4 sectors: marine renewable energy, marine leisure activities, sustainable marine operations and marine ecosystem management;
- Transport: making recommendations to improve synergies and complementarities between transport policies and infrastructure projects on both sides of the Channel;
- Maritime safety: developing activities to improve the capacity of local authorities along the Channel coastline to better deal with marine pollution.