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At European level, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has put forward efforts to establish a fleet of vessels prepared to intervene for oil spill interventions. In this regard, EMSA has contracted 18 vessels which are which are equipped with oil slick detection, containment and recovery equipment. Figure 2 presents the location of EMSA contracted vessels.

Besides the activity of EMSA, several regional agreements have been settled for operative intervention in case of oil spill. Five regional agreements have been elaborated for the sea areas along the European coastline. In all these agreements, the European Union has the role of contracting party. The areas covered by these agreements are the North Sea (Bonn Agreement), the Baltic Sea (Helsinki Convention, HELCOM), the Mediterranean (Barcelona Convention), and the North East Atlantic (Lisbon Agreement). This proves the local efforts of authorities to effectively respond in case of oil spills. These agreements have the purpose, for a particular sea area, to plan for the pollution preparedness and to coordinate intervention responses in case of a large-scale marine incident. Table 3 gives an overview of the different agreements signed by European countries.

Figure 2. EMSA contracted oil spill response vessels.

Source: (GREEN4SEA, 2015)

Table 3. European regional agreements with regard to oil pollution.

As shown in Table 3, countries ratified several conventions. Figure 3 gives an overview of the countries that are part of several agreements and EMSA is pointed out.

Source: (EMSA, n.d.)