Irish Regions Office Website

November 27, 2008

Maritime spatial planning

A Roadmap for Maritime Spatial Planning was adopted by the European Commission on 25 November to address the increasing challenges and complications emerging from the growth in competing uses of both marine and coastal spaces. This new tool is intended to facilitate the development of what is a relatively new concept of more systematically managing these resources in a sustainable manner.

The Communication provides information on current practices and instruments as well as defining a series of joint principles to encourage a debate on how an added value common approach to the challenges of shared maritime resources and issues, which are often interlinked and transcend national borders, can be achieved at EU level. Earlier this year the Irish Sea Regions Platform was launched on foot of a 2007 submission by the Dublin Regional Authority in response to the Commission’s Green Paper, Towards a Future Maritime Policy for the Union. Partners representing regions and sectoral stakeholders along the seaboard in Ireland and Britain are now working together to establish a basis to provide opportunities to develop integrated projects. Similar strategies for the Baltic and Black Seas are at more advanced stages and have contributed to the Roadmap’s content.

The spatial planning approach forms one element of the EU's wider Integrated Maritime Policy which aims to coordinate all EU policies with a maritime dimension in order to safeguard environmental sustainability and quality of life in coastal regions while promoting the growth potential of maritime industries. In 2009, the Commission will organise a number of workshops to discuss the key principles of the roadmap, launch pilot projects aimed at developing cross-border cooperation aspects and produce a progress report. An accompanying study on the legal aspects of this topic has also been issued.

Roadmap:
http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/spatial_planning_en.html

Posted by iroronan at November 27, 2008 03:14 PM