Achievement at a glance
The EU Member States implement the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC), which is one of the most ambitious international marine protection legal frameworks. Its aim is to apply an ecosystem-based management and achieve good environmental status in 5,720,000 km2 of sea surface area across four sea regions. It is applied from the coastline to the deep sea, thus protecting the full range of marine biodiversity from unicellular algae to huge cetaceans, analysing all environmental aspects from ecosystem functions to chemical properties and assessing the effects of all human activities from tourism to commercial fisheries’ bottom trawling.In 2017, Commission Decision (EU) 2017/848 laying down criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters and specifications and standardised methods for monitoring and assessment was adopted and guides further the EU Member States in determining good environmental status.
The EU has a holistic and comprehensive marine policy in place that puts into practice the ecosystem-based approach to manage human activities in the EU’s seas. Importantly, it also helps in delivering key international commitments. The MSFD requires the EU Member States to set up national marine strategies that aim at reaching good environmental status in EU marine waters. The condition of different ecosystem components and the presence (and, when feasible, the effects) of key pressures are being monitored, and pertinent measures are being put in place to attain the main objective and environmental targets. Inter-departmental collaboration and cross-sectoral data sharing has started within Member States, and regional coordination has expanded in recent years with the support of regional sea conventions (HELCOM, OSPAR, Barcelona and Black Sea Conventions).
The efforts on achieving GES are ongoing and the European Commission is evaluating the Directive and preparing its possible revision in 2023.
Challenges faced in implementation
There are still implementation challenges.Restoring marine ecosystems to a clean, healthy and sustainable state from the establishment of the first programmes of measures needs to take into account the time lag between action and ecological recovery. The report on the implementation of the MSFD (1) acknowledges that progress in reaching good environmental status has not been fast enough to cover all MSFD descriptors in all EU waters by 2020. This can be linked to a range of factors, such as the complexity of analysing and managing the marine environment and reporting on it, the lack of political will to adequately fund and enforce the necessary measures, or the lack of involvement of other economic and private sectors (apart from environmental public authorities).
It will therefore be important to follow an adaptive policy approach to reach Good Environmental Status.
(1) https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0259&from=EN
Next Steps
A follow-up commitment is considered for proposal at the next UN Ocean Conference.Beneficiaries
EU Member States, riparian States of the relevant sea basins, as well as current and future generations.