Marine spatial planning in the European Union

Abstract

In 2006, the European Commission in its Green Paper on Maritime Policy emphasized the importance of sustainable development, mainly the importance of competitiveness and growth of the maritime industry, increasing employment and sustainable use of marine resources (Blue Growth), protection of marine environment and mitigation of and adaption to climate change (COM, 2006, 275, pp. 3-21).1 It further emphasized the importance of a stable regulatory framework in the form of spatial planning for the marine areas as a way forward to implement these policy goals. The Commission stated that marine spatial planning (MSP)2 should be ecosystem based and this regulatory framework should also be connected to licensing or other means of ‘promoting or placing restrictions on maritime activities’ (COM, 2006, 275). This emphasis on MSP, as an implementation mechanism for sustainable development, gained further support in the Blue Book of the Commission in which it stated that MSP is one of the key instruments in implementing Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) in the EU (COM, 2007, 575).3