Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) as an integrative factor in POLAND

Abstract

This paper reviews the Marine Spatial Planning process in Poland under the BONUS BALTSPACE project, which systematize and integrate factors functioning in this process, in order to analyze the role of MSP in the integration of various types of human activates in marine governance. The project aimed to systematize and integrate those factors through selected integration challenges, which were, 1) transboundary/cross-border integration challenge, 2) policy/sectoral integration challenge, 3) stakeholder integration challenge, 4) knowledge integration challenge. The goal of this paper is to detect the main issues of the MSP process in Poland, in relation to those four integration challenges. The main conclusion is that MSP in Poland acts pretty well as a cross-scale integrator inside the country and also in the international set-up, however, cross-border integration is not required by Polish law and has been done at the voluntary basis. Some deficits can be identified in relation to stakeholder and cross-sectoral integration but the biggest problem is knowledge integration despite the huge effort of Polish Maritime Administration to collect all available knowledge. There is a need to work more intensively towards MSP relevant knowledge integration in the future in particular tacit knowledge of stakeholders. Another finding is that all those types of integration, even when achieved in Polish MSP will not prepare Poland towards joint transboundary planning effort at the BSR level. Here, there is a need for more research and continuation of transnational projects such as Baltic Lines or Baltic Rim.