Europe’s Ocean Plans Are Too National. Scientists Say Regions Hold the Fix

Europe’s seas are now formally covered by maritime spatial plans. Under Directive 2014/89/EU, nearly every member state has drawn up a national blueprint allocating space for shipping lanes, wind farms, aquaculture, fisheries, cables, conservation zones and the dozens of other human activities competing for the same stretch of water. Yet a new study argues that the hardest part of ocean planning is only beginning, because the national plans that satisfy Brussels often fail to satisfy the coastal regions that must live with them. The research, published in Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability, proposes a replicable framework for pulling regional needs into nationally driven maritime spatial planning, and it was tested across eight European regions with strikingly different governance systems.

The study emerged from the REGINA-MSP project, funded by the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund between 2022 and 2024. Researchers from universities, research institutes and national ministries compared eight case study regions at the EU NUTS 2 administrative level: Murcia and Galicia in Spain, Northern Sardinia in Italy, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur and Pays de la Loire in France, Crete and Central Macedonia in Greece, and County Mayo in Ireland. The regions span two sea basins, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and were deliberately chosen to capture the full spectrum of maritime spatial planning maturity. Some operate under long-established plans, some under plans adopted only recently, and others under plans still pending formal adoption. The team wanted to know whether a single methodology could work across such institutional diversity, and the answer appears to be yes.

The problem the researchers set out to solve is structural. Maritime spatial planning, or MSP, is valued both as a strategic tool and as a participatory process for reconciling environmental protection, economic growth and social equity. But while some of the earliest planning initiatives emerged at regional and local scales, most famously the zoning system of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, MSP in Europe is now almost universally led by central government. National plans are designed to serve national priorities, which means they can lack the flexibility and detail to account for the ecological, socio-economic and cultural characteristics of individual coastal regions. The strategic nature of most plan provisions allows them to be applied across many decision-making processes, but it raises questions about how well they scale down to the places where planning actually gets implemented.

Responsibility distribution makes the challenge worse. In some countries, regional and local authorities hold formal legal competencies over specific maritime sectors; in others, responsibilities are shared between levels of government; and in some, such as Greece, power is fully centralized with national authorities. This variation produces very different levels of regional involvement in planning and very different degrees to which regional needs actually reach the final documents. The study also highlights persistent gaps in stakeholder participation, fragmented data systems and limited coherence between national strategies and regional or local priorities. The researchers invoke the principle of spatial subsidiarity, which holds that spatial challenges should be addressed at the lowest appropriate territorial level while remaining aligned with broader national and transnational objectives.

The methodological framework itself proceeds in three sequential phases. The first phase identifies regional priorities through a systematic review of spatial plans, policies and datasets, complemented by stakeholder input from regional authorities and sector-specific actors. The researchers developed a typology of regional needs grounded in conventional strategic planning theory, yielding four categories: strategic orientation, meaning the absence or inadequacy of clearly defined long-term visions; data information, covering gaps in both raw data availability and processed information such as cumulative impact analyses; sectoral spatial coexistence, referring to difficulties in managing conflicts and synergies among maritime sectors; and governance and institutional coherence, covering coordination failures across governance levels and limited stakeholder engagement.

The second phase translates the identified needs into concrete actions through a participatory process. Actions were grouped into four typologies reflecting the stages of plan development: strategic and specific objectives that align overarching MSP goals with regional specificities; knowledge base actions that improve the collection, management and use of data; zoning actions that allocate marine space efficiently and prevent sectoral conflicts; and management measures that regulate resource use and establish robust governance mechanisms. Each action co-proposed by case study leaders in collaboration with local actors was reviewed by experts from research institutes, universities and national ministries to confirm its coherence with the challenges identified in the first phase. The final phase prioritizes these actions through a three-stage process: a multi-need assessment gauging how many regional needs each action addresses simultaneously, expert and regional validation of practical feasibility, and an iterative final prioritization ensuring consistency with national and regional planning frameworks.

The comparative analysis yielded ninety-three actions across the eight regions, and the regional specificities are vivid. In Murcia, priorities center on managing unregulated anchoring that damages seagrass meadows and underwater cultural heritage, alongside carrying capacity studies for aquaculture impacts on sensitive maërl habitats. Galicia confronts the collision of traditional sectors like fisheries and shellfish farming with emerging offshore wind energy, and researchers there integrated automatic identification system data with hydrophone recordings to characterize underwater noise along the coast. Sardinia focuses on leisure boating pressures in the La Maddalena archipelago and proposes a Traffic Separation Scheme in the Gulf of Asinara, plus a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the Strait of Bonifacio with cross-border involvement. In Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the central task is operationalizing the national Façade Strategic Document into local plans, supported by the regional geoplatform Monlittoral for data sharing. Crete emphasizes a multi-use strategy balancing tourism with other blue economy sectors, while Central Macedonia needs a regional Marine Strategy and detailed plans for each of its four gulfs. County Mayo, meanwhile, examines how Ireland’s Designated Maritime Area Plan process could empower sub-national planning bodies.

The prioritization exercise revealed which actions deliver the most cross-cutting value. In Murcia, carrying capacity studies ranked highest because they simultaneously address data gaps, sectoral coexistence and governance coherence. In Galicia, displaying geographic information systems layers for offshore aquaculture siting met all four need categories at once. In Crete, the multi-use tourism strategy and the land-sea interaction capacity study were prioritized for their potential to address knowledge gaps while improving the overall planning system. In County Mayo, supporting national Designated Maritime Area Plan guidelines and ensuring coherence between marine and land-use planning emerged as top actions. The pattern suggests that interventions capable of meeting multiple needs simultaneously, validated by both experts and regional authorities, offer the greatest strategic relevance and implementability within ongoing planning processes.

Across the eight case studies, common threads emerged alongside regional differences. Data-driven, evidence-based approaches proved a universal feature, enabling regions to contribute more actively to planning within their territories. Governance represented another shared domain, with France’s Façade Strategic Documents demonstrating strong vertical alignment between national and local priorities, while Ireland, Crete and Central Macedonia illustrated the flexibility of bottom-up mechanisms that empower regional decision-making. Environmental sustainability remained a common priority, with multi-use strategies balancing economic growth and conservation in line with ecosystem-based approaches. The integration of digital tools and participatory mechanisms, including geoportals and spatial decision-support systems, proved decisive for effective implementation, enhancing data transparency and enabling real-time stakeholder feedback.

The study acknowledges real limitations. Integrating regional actions into existing institutional frameworks can be difficult in centralized settings with rigid administrative structures, and planning timelines that differ between regional initiatives and national processes can slow uptake. The lack of dedicated legal instruments for implementation, insufficient funding, limited human resources and uneven political commitment can undermine even well-prioritized actions. The methodology also assumes a level of institutional and stakeholder readiness that may not always exist, particularly in regions where MSP is still emerging. Still, the researchers argue that their framework offers a structured, participatory and transferable methodology for enhancing regional engagement, and that a stronger institutional mandate for regional authorities could enhance the legitimacy and efficiency of national planning processes. The core message is a governance model that recognizes local stakeholders as active contributors rather than passive implementers of maritime spatial planning.

Subject of Research: Maritime Spatial Planning, Marine Governance, Ocean Policy, Regional Framework, EU MSP Directive

Article Title: Toward downscaling maritime spatial planning: a regional framework for tailoring actions to local needs

Article References: Didonna, R., Carella, F., Bocci, M., Delaroche, E., Gómez Gesteira, J. L., Gutiérrez-Ruiz, E., Kyvelou, S. S., Châles, F., Musco, F., O'Hagan, A. M., Papageorgiou, M., Ramieri, E., Woolley, T., & Brigolin, D. (2026). Toward downscaling maritime spatial planning: a regional framework for tailoring actions to local needs. Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability, 4, Article 1802042. https://doi.org/10.3389/focsu.2026.1802042

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/focsu.2026.1802042

Keywords: maritime spatial planning, MSP, ocean governance, EU policy, regional planning, marine conservation, blue economy, spatial subsidiarity, coastal management, Frontiers in Ocean Sustainability, Toward, downscaling