A roadmap for maritime spatial planning

Maritime spatial planning (MSP), by providing a stable and foreseeable framework for the management of maritime regions, underpins an integrated maritime policy. It is a tool for the economic development of maritime activities and effective protection of the marine environment. Planning allows arbitration in the case of conflicts resulting from increasingly intense use of the sea. In this framework, the European Commission proposed in November 2008 a roadmap to encourage the Member States to develop maritime spatial planning and to contribute to the European coherence of this initiative.