5.12.2013   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 356/124

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highlights that the proposed Directive is made in the context of a number of Member States already having MSP and ICM policies, to which local and regional authorities are key players; furthermore, would wish the proposal not to affect the competences that exist with and within Member States in the field of spatial planning;

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considers that the question of whether the EU should legislate remains open and that the question of how it should legislate also needs to be addressed; suggests in this regard, that the proposal as currently worded breaches the proportionality principle;

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suggests that the proposed Directive provides insufficient flexibility for implementation as: (a) it cuts across well-established informal processes for ICM, in some of the Member States; and (b) the proposals on ICM, in particular, impinge directly on existing competences for spatial planning policy and practice held at regional and/or local level;

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underlines that a framework Directive must not establish the content of maritime spatial plans;

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believes that a framework Directive should set common principles and facilitate cross-border cooperation and cooperation between national authorities which have competence for their shorelines and leave the definition of ‘coastal zones’ to Member State authorities;

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highlights that the proposed Directive, as currently worded, will have negative consequences for local/regional planning policy and procedures, as the proposal will subject spatial plans with a coastal dimension to minimum sector-specific content requirements, which considerably undermine the autonomy of planning authorities to balance the needs of all appropriate uses.

Rapporteur

Mr Paul O'DONOGHUE, Member of Kerry County Council and South West Regional Authority (IE/ALDE)

Reference document

Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for maritime spatial planning and integrated coastal management

COM(2013) 133 final

1.

supports the general aims of the proposed Directive to: achieve a more effective management of marine activities and efficient use of marine resources; develop consistent and evidence-based decision-making and enhanced cooperation of coastal and marine management; facilitate the coherent implementation of key EU policy objectives (1) and contribute to sustainable growth and the development of the ‘blue economy’;

2.

welcomes efforts to achieve better coordination between land-based and sea-based activities; endorses coherent European policy based on international best practice and sympathetic to established national practices; and supports the development of common principles for Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) and Integrated Coastal Management (ICM);

3.

highlights that the proposed Directive is made in the context of a number of Member States already having MSP and ICM policies, or developing such policies, to which local and regional authorities are key players; furthermore, would wish the proposal not to affect the competences that exist with and within Member States in the field of spatial planning;

4.

given that ‘maritime spatial planning’ requires regular consultations between the Member States, the EU's role in this area should be limited to establishing a procedural framework or procedural standards;

5.

regrets the lack of targeted consultation on the Impact Assessment with local and regional authorities, as planning authorities and key implementers of the proposed Directive;

6.

recognises that the proposed Directive follows on from the establishment of the Integrated Maritime Policy in 2007 and the adoption of a ‘Blue Growth’ agenda in 2012, but nevertheless understands a number of the concerns that have been expressed on the multiple legal base of the proposed Directive;

7.

in this regard notes the opinion of the Council Legal Service (2) regarding the multiple legal basis used for the proposed Directive; considers that greater clarity will be required when the European Commission makes future proposals using multiple legal bases or using Article 3 (TEU-territorial cohesion) that may have direct and/or indirect implications for spatial planning policy and practice in the Member States;

8.

highlights that the subsidiarity check by national (and regional) parliaments produced nine negative reasoned opinions (3); agrees that elements of the proposed Directive fail to adequately meet necessity and added-value requirements for legislation at EU level;

9.

appreciates that there are concerns regarding: (a) competence — lack of clear competence at EU level, while MSP and ICM are already national, regional and/or local competences in some Member States; (b) failure of the proposed Directive to adequately take account of regional/local specificities of coastal areas and existing planning and management practices; and (c) the appropriateness of using EU legislation to address specific cross-border issues and the adequacy of the EU level to frame cooperation with third countries, where international maritime conventions already operate;

10.

considers that the question of whether the EU should legislate remains open and that the question of how it should legislate also needs to be addressed; suggests in this regard, that the proposal as currently worded breaches the proportionality principle;

11.

considers that the proposed Directive is too prescriptive; disagrees with the listing of minimum requirements in Articles 6-8 as these limit the scope for regional or local priority setting and are in contrast to the stated objectives of the Directive being procedural only and not intervening in planning detail;

12.

suggests that the proposed Directive provides insufficient flexibility for implementation as: (a) it cuts across well-established informal processes for ICM, in some of the Member States; and (b) the proposals on ICM, in particular, impinge directly on existing competences for spatial planning policy and practice held at regional and/or local level;

13.

questions, furthermore, the prescriptive approach to other aspects of the proposal, such as the setting of timeframes for the review of plans and strategies (Article 6) and the requirements on reporting (Article 15); considers that the associated increase in bureaucracy, administrative burden and additional costs in implementing the Directive, particularly at local level, further undermine its added-value;

14.

has reservations on the proposed use of further Implementing Acts on operational steps for the establishment of plans and strategies (Article 16); feels these go beyond what is required to help implement the obligations of the Directive and seem to suggest that the European Commission considers the Directive, as currently proposed, in need of further strengthening; suggests that the proposed use of Implementing Acts should be reconsidered so that these focus on procedural aspects only;

15.

fully supports the development of MSP as a multi-sector tool to facilitate the implementation of the ecosystem approach, to support the rational use of maritime resources, to reconcile concurrent human activities and minimise impact on the marine environment, as well as ensuring climate-resilient coastal and marine areas; further supports a plan-led approach that provides clear rules to help foster long-term investment and thus increase the contribution made by maritime activities to achieving the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy;

16.

underlines that MSP must be developed as a neutral planning tool which incorporates a certain level of flexibility to accommodate appropriate policy processes for diverse marine environments; further calls for clarity on the scope of the ecosystem-based approach of the draft Directive as there will need to be a balance between economic development and environmental protection; rejects therefore the setting of ‘top-down’ priorities and minimum requirements for management plans and using MSP as an instrument to ensure implementation of sector specific policy objectives;

17.

considers that the proposed Directive, as currently worded, is too detailed and insufficiently flexible to fully take account of: existing MSP practices; the need to maintain the setting of management priorities at the national or sub-national level; and the regional specificity of the marine resource;

18.

supports, however, the adoption of a framework Directive for establishing MSP in the European Union, which, taking account of existing practices in some Member States, should: establish the obligation for maritime spatial plans; set common principles; establish minimum requirements for cross-border cooperation and the coordination of maritime plans; and set principles for reconciliation of competing uses in the maritime space and competing objectives of different Marine Spatial Plans;

19.

underlines that a framework Directive must not establish the content of maritime spatial plans;

20.

highlights that, in supporting MSP, the development of the ‘blue economy’ requires integrated management of which MSP is part of the solution, but not the solution, and that maritime governance needs to be improved;

21.

is therefore surprised that, given its prescriptive nature, the draft Directive is silent on the governance principles required; thus considers that maritime policy and MSP in particular requires a multi-level, cross-sectoral governance approach; acknowledges that whilst Member States have responsibility for administering territorial waters and the EEZs, regional and local authorities by virtue of their spatial planning and management competences can ensure coherence and coordination between maritime and terrestrial spatial planning approaches;

22.

underlines that it has been a long-term advocate and supporter of ICM (formerly ICZM) and recognises that ICM can play a significant role in achieving synergies between planning frameworks for the marine and terrestrial environments and building consensus among concerned stakeholders;

23.

draws attention to the definition of ‘coastal zone’ (Article 3.1) and in particular the implications this has on local/regional planning authorities; in particular, considers that defining the seaward side of the zone to include the entire territorial sea as a very wide delimitation and beyond the scope of existing planning authorities (including their human and financial resources) in a number of Member States and that the defined landward side of the zone lacks clarity and clearly has direct implications for existing land-use plans and practices;

24.

believes that a framework Directive should set common principles and facilitate cross-border cooperation and cooperation between national authorities which have competence for their shorelines and leave the definition of ‘coastal zones’ to Member State authorities, when necessary and as appropriate to the planning policy and practice in their jurisdictions;

25.

considers that the interface between land-sea planning must take a more holistic approach, given that the interconnections between land and sea go beyond the ‘coastal zone’ (such as the influence of river basins further inland, the impact of ports as regional development hubs, the interconnectedness of transportation routes and energy generation and transmission systems; etc.) and suggests that Member States must have greater flexibility in determining which tools to use to enable effective coordination between land-based and sea-based activities;

26.

questions, therefore, the value of transforming what is currently an informal management approach into an additional formal planning tool; is unconvinced by Article 2.3 which says that ‘the provisions of this Directive shall be without prejudice to Member States' competences for town and country planning’ as it considers legislating for Integrated Coastal Management as terrestrial planning legislation, which is primarily a competence at Member State level although in some Member States this legislative competence lies with the regions; believes that the implementation of the Directive will have a direct impact on planning practice at national, regional and local levels and for these reasons has strong reservations about making the production of ICM strategies an obligation in all coastal Member States (4);

27.

recalls the ICZM Recommendation (2002) which considered that ‘given the diversity of conditions in the coastal zones and the legal and institutional frameworks in the Member States, the objectives of the proposed action (implementing ICZM in Europe) can best be achieved by guidance at the Community level’ (5); suggests that little has changed since then and regrets that the European Commission did not give full consideration of all non-binding options to strengthen the implementation of ICM;

28.

considers, however, that ICM must continue to play an important role in complementing MSP and helping to manage coastal resources and engage concerned stakeholders; calls on the European Commission to reconsider how this could be reinvigorated by developing more appropriate non-binding measures; proposes that Member States assess what specific measures need to be taken to ensure better consistency between land-use and marine spatial plans;

29.

underlines the role that local and regional authorities play in spatial planning policy, including in existing MSP and ICM practices; also highlights that local and regional authorities already engage in bilateral cross-border coordination in spatial planning policy;

30.

supports existing regional cooperation initiatives, at macro-regional or sea-basin level; regrets that the proposed Directive has not specifically provided for the diversity of maritime environments and the potential closer cooperation taking such regional specificities into account; furthermore considers that provisions will have to be made for the unpredictability of dealing with some third countries and the complexity for the Outermost Regions;

31.

considers that the potential intended and unintended impacts of the proposed Directive at local/regional level will be significant, particularly in terms of (a) impacting on existing competences at local/regional level in planning policy and practice; and (b) imposing additional administrative and financial burdens;

32.

highlights that the proposed Directive, as currently worded, will have negative consequences for local/regional planning policy and procedures, as the proposal will subject spatial plans with a coastal dimension to minimum sector-specific content requirements, which considerably undermine the autonomy of planning authorities to balance the needs of all appropriate uses;

33.

considers that the proposed timescale to have maritime plans and coastal strategies in place within 36 months of the Directive entering into force is very ambitious; highlights that such timeframes would be impossible to comply with where MSP and ICM are in their infancy; proposes therefore that such timescales should be extended;

34.

questions, more specifically, the logic of requiring a review of maritime spatial plans and integrated coastal management strategies at least every six years, on the grounds that this will be a difficult and costly exercise for the competent authorities and that it does not necessarily conform with well-established plan review cycles in the Member States;

35.

highlights that implementation will place significant additional burdens on planning authorities at local and regional levels, as well as requiring such authorities, at a time of budget restraint, to find additional financial and human resources, including (scarce) suitably qualified marine spatial planners, to comply with the Directive;

36.

is concerned that no detailed assessment has been made by the European Commission on the extent of the additional administrative burden and costs of implementation, a significant amount of which will be borne by local and regional authorities; suggests that these impacts undermine the added-value aspects of the proposed Directive for these authorities;

37.

proposes, therefore, that the European Commission undertakes a detailed ex-ante assessment of: (a) the impact of the Directive on existing planning policy and practice in coastal regions; and (b) the additional costs of implementing the Directive, particularly at local and regional levels.