This year the General Assembly was hosted by Provincie Noord-Holland in cooperation with Interreg North Sea Programme and NSC.

At the Thursday meeting Commissioner Borg spoke to the GA in Noord-Holland

From the DG Mare press release;
Today, Joe Borg, European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, will visit Noord-Holland, the Netherlands, and attend a conference on "Sustainable Innovation for the North Sea Region", organised by the North Sea Commission of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR). Ahead of his visit, Mr Borg said, "As the Noord-Holland province is surrounded by water, it is an ideal setting for discussing coastal and maritime affairs. Noord-Holland and its stakeholders share unique insight and know-how and are ideally placed to contribute to integrated policy-making at regional and national level alike. Moreover, the CPMR has been a consistent supporter of the European Union's Integrated Maritime Policy, while the North Sea Commission is one of its bodies whose valuable work on projects has helped put that policy into practice". In his address to the conference, Commissioner Borg will point to integrated coastal zone management and maritime spatial planning, a key tool developed under the European Union's Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP). Both can be used as means of delivering coherent and integrated governance, planning and climate change mitigation in coastal areas particularly in places such as the North Sea region, which has in fact been exploring spatial planning and co-operation for some time now. He will also advocate customised sea-basin strategies under the IMP umbrella as a means of stimulating growth and jobs, while simultaneously triggering profound improvements in environmental sustainability.
You find his speech here; Borg speech

Other news;

• Cllr. Rinske Kruisinga and Cllr. Sandy Cluness were reelected as NSC Vice-Presidents for the period 2009-2011.
• New members of the Executive Committee was elected, you find the members here;  ExCom members 09-11 (109.74 kB)
• Resolution on Cod Recovery plan was adopted and has been sent to DG Mare; CPMR NSC Cod recovery Resolution (81.09 kB)
• NSC will start to prepare for a "North Sea Strategy" and seek cooperation with all relevant stakeholders of the North Sea.