What are other Member States and Europe doing?

We are not alone in attempting to quantify what the Directive means by Good Status. The other 24 Member States, Norway, and a number of accession countries are also doing this. We have been working with these countries, and with the European Commission, to compare methods of biological assessment and classification. This is a formal process known as Intercalibration. Intercalibration is expected to produce its first draft recommendations on class boundaries in spring 2006. This timing will allow us to take account of the results as we finalise our first report.