Why do we need maritime spatial planning?;
The importance of spatial planning at sea is paramount, as it is a process of analyzing and allocating human activities in space and time that offers multiple benefits—environmental, economic, and social. With regard to environmental issues, maritime spatial planning (MSP) addresses the need to protect marine ecosystems from threats such as overfishing or pollution, as well as the urgent priorities posed by the climate crisis, which call for the immediate adoption of appropriate measures.
At the European level, both the importance and the urgency of the THS are reflected in the provisions of the relevant European Union directive (2014/89/EU), according to which Member States were required to have adopted spatial plans by March 2021. In fact, these plans must adopt an ecosystem-based approach—that is, they must regulate human activities at sea while recognizing that the natural resources of the marine environment are not inexhaustible. In other words, maritime spatial planning is one of the key tools at our disposal to safeguard the rich biodiversity of our seas, ensuring the valuable ecosystem services provided by marine ecosystems and, consequently, the development of a truly sustainable blue economy. However, the implementation of spatial planning in the Mediterranean Sea is characterized by serious shortcomings.
The report's alarming findings
According to the recent WWF report «Marine Spatial Planning in the Mediterranean: Assessing the Balance Between Nature and People in European Seas,» national marine spatial plans have significant gaps, both at the national level and across national borders. In particular, they do not adequately take climate change into account and do not effectively contribute to achieving European targets for renewable energy and the protection of marine biodiversity.
To prepare the report, WWF collected data on France, Malta, Slovenia, and Spain from nationally approved maritime spatial plans available on the European Commission’s MSP platform and on official government websites. The assessment was based on a set of 33 quantitative indicators, which essentially reflect the requirements of the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (e.g., analysis of the coastal zone and land-sea interactions, designation of areas for nature restoration, and application of the precautionary principle in cases of insufficient scientific data). A national maritime spatial plan is considered to effectively implement the ecosystem-based approach of the MSFD if it meets all the indicators (and therefore receives a score of 100%).
Greece was not included in this substantive assessment, as it has not yet adopted plans for its maritime space. The same shortcoming applies to Croatia, Cyprus, and Italy. For these four countries, the European Commission has initiated infringement proceedings, as the key deadline for adopting plans set by the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive has passed without action (March 2021).
Among the EU member states that WWF was able to evaluate, even the country with the best performance in the assessment, Slovenia, managed to demonstrate only a partially successful achievement (56%), as it applies an ecosystem-based approach to its water management. If the assessment had included the unfinished projects in four of the eight countries under evaluation—which received a score of 0% due to their non-implementation— the Mediterranean average for the WFD’s ecosystem-based approach would have dropped sharply (from 45% to 22%).
The report also highlights significant weaknesses regarding the key issue of the energy transition, as no Mediterranean member state is moving in the right direction to increase the overall share of renewable energy sources (RES) to 40% by 2030, a milestone that is a target of the European Green Deal. Consequently, further efforts are needed to identify areas for the siting of offshore RES facilities in accordance with EU standards and legislation, while also ensuring a balance with onshore renewable energy development. In fact, many countries, such as Greece, Italy, and Cyprus, continue to designate areas for fossil fuel extraction, while at the same time failing to adequately promote the designation of «priority areas» for the development of offshore renewable energy.
Furthermore, no national plan has effectively addressed the spatial and temporal uncertainties posed by climate change, despite the region’s vulnerability to sea-level rise and rising temperatures. The continued absence of an ecosystem-based fisheries management plan will make it increasingly difficult for the EU and its neighbors to overcome the impacts of the climate crisis, which not only reduce fisheries productivity in the region but also permanently alter the coastline due to erosion and rising sea levels.
On the positive side of the assessment, two countries with territorial waters in more than one regional sea—France and Spain—scored higher in the Mediterranean than they did in other European maritime regions, highlighting the social, economic, and cultural significance of this region for the EU’s largest blue economies. Furthermore, both countries have specific strategies to help achieve the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s target of protecting at least 30% of marineand coastal areas, in addition to mitigation measures that restore blue carbon ecosystems, such as Posidonia meadows. However, with the exception of Slovenia and Malta, all Member States in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean still lack marine spatial plans, despite their heavy reliance on tourism.
One category of the assessment in which the Mediterranean region scored particularly poorly (average of 12.51 TP3T) was cross-border cooperation for proper planning, monitoring, and implementation of the directive. Without this type of cooperation, any national effort to achieve good environmental status in the Mediterranean will ultimately fail. Effective cooperation is particularly important to ensure that migration routes of marine mammals, which currently have been taken into account in RepowerEU, will be effectively addressed at both the national and regional levels.
Furthermore, the overall lack of public participation in the planning process is a major shortcoming for the Mediterranean, as its economy relies heavily on small-scale businesses in sectors such as tourism and fishing. As a result, no member state has managed to take all sectors and stakeholders into account in its national plans, thereby overlooking important social groups such as small-scale fishermen, who account for 82% of the EU’s Mediterranean fleet.
The Case of Greece
With regard to our country, the report highlights the serious problems in the adoption and implementation of the TCH, which, as WWF Greece recently pointed out In a note to the European Commission, these issues concern both the effective formulation of our national policy and the virtually zero progress made on implementation matters. Unfortunately, this is a persistent oversight, which, however, takes on a critical nature in the current context, as pressures on Greek waters are intensifying due to the implementation of piecemeal policies and the planning of new projects without the integrated, ecosystem-based approach required by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
The lack of political will to ensure a sustainable future for Greece’s seas through the MSFD is now glaringly obvious. Nine years after the directive entered into force and two years after the deadline for adopting the plan —and despite the progress made in science and research—the process of drafting maritime spatial plans has not even begun. The Ministry of Environment and Energy appears to be maintaining its inaction even after the European Commission initiated infringement proceedings by sending a warning letter to Greece (December 2021), which is why the Commission proceeded to the next stage of the procedure to verify the country’s compliance (issuance of a reasoned opinion—April 2023).
However, even the enactment of the national strategy for the maritime domain, a key instrument provided for in national legislation, the final form of which was announced by the Ministry of the Environment in February of this year, remains unjustifiably pending. It is clear that there is no further room for inaction. As noted in the WWF report, the Ministry of Environment and Energy is called upon to enact the national strategy, effectively utilize existing scientific knowledge, ensure stakeholder participation, and immediately begin drafting marine spatial plans.
Learn more about what Marine Spatial Planning is and why it matters in the video (Greek subtitles are available; select the language in the settings at the bottom right of the video)
