Report assessing Member States’ monitoring programmes under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) provides a framework in which Member States must take the necessary measures to achieve or maintain 'good environmental status' in all of the EU’s marine waters by 2020. Achieving this objective means that the EU’s seas are clean, healthy and productive and the use of the marine environment is sustainable. The MSFD includes eleven qualitative "descriptors" describing what the environment should look like when good environmental status has been achieved. Commission Decision 2010/477/EU on criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters guides Member States on how this objective is to be achieved.

Member States reported in 2012 after the first implementation phase covering the initial assessment, the determination of good environmental status and the identification of environmental targets. The Commission published an assessment of these elements, concluding that Member States showed limited ambition in setting environmental targets. This assessment also highlighted a lack of coherence and consistency in implementation across marine sub-regions and marine regions.

In the next stage of implementation, Member States were required to establish and implement monitoring programmes by July 2014 and to notify them to the Commission within three months of their establishment. The monitoring programmes aim to assess the environmental status of marine waters and progress towards the achievement of environmental targets. Twenty Member States reported their monitoring programmes to the Commission in time for this evaluation. Three Member States (Malta, Greece and Poland) had not yet submitted their reports.

This report complements the 2014 Commission report and aims to set out Member States’ progress towards more consistent and coherent implementation of the MSFD in order to achieve good environmental status in the EU's marine waters by 2020. The Commission presents its assessment of the monitoring programmes submitted by the Member States. The report assesses the consistency and appropriateness of each Member State’s monitoring programme, as well as looking at regional coherence. The report also provides guidance on any changes the Commission considers necessary.

The accompanying staff working document contains a detailed analysis of each Member State’s monitoring programme in light of the eleven qualitative descriptors in the MSFD, as well as providing specific guidance to each Member State. It also includes an assessment of some elements reported under the first implementation phase of the MSFD for those Member States having reported late – Bulgaria, Croatia, Malta, the Macaronesia sub-region of Portugal (Azores and Madeira) and the Western Mediterranean sub-region for the United Kingdom (the waters surrounding Gibraltar).

EUR-Lex: SWD(2017)1: Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the report http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2017:001:FIN

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