The project

Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) emerged worldwide as an important policy tool for planning the different uses of Seas and Oceans efficiently, in order to achieve both a sustainable development of the Blue economy and a long-lasting safeguarding of marine resources. MSP is also recognized as a useful tool to strengthen cross-border cooperation and to support improved ocean governance, in order to avoid different kinds of conflicts. The overarching objective of the MSP-MED project is to facilitate the MSP Directive’s processes in the Member States facing the Mediterranean Sea, presently at different stages of implementation, by supporting the establishment of coherent and coordinated maritime spatial plans across the Mediterranean Region. The MSP Competent Authorities of France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Spain, participate directly or endorsed relevant national institutions for participating in the project and are involved in its development.

MSP-MED in Greece

The EU MSP Directive (2014/89/ΕΕ) has been transposed in Greek legislation, with the Law 4546/2018. The Law sets the national legal framework for maritime spatial planning in Greece which provides for a National Maritime Spatial Strategy and Maritime Spatial Plans. Maritime spatial Plans are included functionally in the regional strategic level of spatial planning and are renamed to Spatial Frameworks (after Law 4685/2020).

The Ministry of Environment and Energy is the Competent Authority for the implementation of MSP. For the achievement of the objectives of Maritime Spatial Planning, the Ministry of Environment and Energy cooperates with the Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Insular Policy which is responsible for the National Strategy of Maritime Policy. In January 2021 the Law 4770 of The Ministry of Maritime Affairs & Insular Policy was voted. Chapter 1, Integrated Maritime Policy for Insular Territory, refers in particular to the definition of the framework for the elaboration and specification of the guidelines for the integrated maritime policy in the insular territory.

Recently, there has been a major regulatory reconstruction for Spatial Planning in Greece. Ιn December 2020 the Law 4759/2020 “Modernization of Spatial and Urban Planning Legislation and other provisions” and particularly Chapter II: “Provisions for Maritime Spatial Planning”. Accordingly, the Maritime Spatial Frameworks correspond to the regional spatial level, refer to maritime spatial units, determined by the National Planning Strategy for Marine Space and they can be of sub-regional, regional or interregional scale.

Greece is currently upgrading, updating and supplementing the existing Geospatial Database, a process that includes the collection of data from public bodies and the creation of Web-GIS. Based on Law 4635.2019, Article 51, the inclusion of the Geospatial Database and the GeoPortal for Marine Spatial Planning (GIS) in the Government Cloud (G-Cloud) has already been co-decided. msp-greece.eu is an integrated information system for collecting/visualizing environmental, social and economic data necessary for Greek Maritime Spatial Planning and Monitoring where registered stakeholders can experiment with zoning, developing scenarios and visualizing the predicted outcomes.