The first joint meeting at Ministerial Level of the OSPAR Commission (OSPAR) for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic and the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area will be hosted by Germany in June 2003. As a basis for this meeting and for the information of the public, the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety invited ICES to prepare a report on the environmental status of European seas. Since the meeting will also discuss a European Strategy for the Marine Environment, the report is intended to inform on the overall environmental status and on issues of concern, focused on the maritime areas covered by these two Commissions, and to provide brief overviews also for the Arctic, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea.