There are more and more maritime professions and their need for space at sea is growing by the day. Fisheries, aquaculture and related industries, energy, transport and tourism, are all developing. How far will the marine sector be able to withstand the pressure? How can all these sectors be developed in a balanced, fair and sustainable way? How can people’s professional futures and revenue be guaranteed whilst safeguarding the sea, its environments and its resources? Via the 2007 ‘Blue paper for an integrated maritime policy’ ⁽¹⁾, the European Commission proposed to member states that they focus on ensuring a sustainable use of the seas and oceans whilst allowing the maritime economy and coastal regions to grow. The Commission proposes that all the stakeholders, be they political, industrial, scientific or environmental, respond to it and put an end to unilateral and sectoral approaches.

It is an objective but also a challenge because it will require political and economic decision makers to listen as much to others’ as to their own interests. There is ‘one’ sea, recalls the Commission, and all the activities carried out at sea interact: an integrated approach, ensuring that each sector has the space that it needs should ensure that everyone has both a competitive and sustainable future. This is the strategic objective integrated with economic development that is compatible with the viability of the environment that has been chosen by the Commission to achieve Europe’s 2020 objectives: first at the starting line, the Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) naturally has a place here.

NEW CULTURE

When it presented its blue paper (approved by the Council at the end of 2008), the Commission knew which obstacles it would come up against. That is why it specifies that, where the Integrated Maritime Policy will change the way in which policies are formulated and decisions are taken in the maritime sector, this new approach will be carried out in full respect of the principle of subsidiarity . It says that it is therefore necessary to invent a new form of governance, the first axis of the IMP, which will allow everyone to express themselves without thereby affecting the coherence of actions that are undertaken. It will allow the competent authorities – Community, national, regional and local – to analyse the interactions between the stakeholders and areas of action concerned and to take account of them at all level in order to develop common tools to exploit synergies and avoid conflicts.

The blue paper identifies the issues and sectors concerned – maritime transport, protection of the environment, marine research and development, fisheries, territorial planning, maritime surveillance, competition between maritime and energy companies, without neglecting an important social dimension (jobs, training and social coverage). It defines objectives: 1. developing the sustainable use of the seas alongside growth of the maritime economy and coastal regions; 2. creating a base of knowledge and innovation for maritime policy; 3. offering a higher quality of life in coastal and remote regions; and, finally, 4. taking on a lead position in international maritime affairs. The blue paper proposes ways forward but does not contain any legislative proposal: its aim is to put in place new concepts, to inject a new management ‘culture’ whilst basing itself on existing policies and tools, such as the strategy and directive on the protection of the marine sector, the Common Fisheries Policy (whose reform, which has just been launched, will have to take into account this new approach) and some aspects of regional and transport policies.

IMMEDIATE IMPLEMENTATION

The action plan accompanying the blue paper includes a long list of concrete actions to be launched in the first three years (2008-2010), which affect these policies directly or indirectly. During this first phase, which it describes as “ making concepts concrete,” the Commission has focused work on:

1. governance: working methods

2. putting in place cross-sectoral tools: the European maritime surveillance network, spatial planning of the sea (and integrated management of the coastal areas) and putting knowledge into a network (a complete and accessible source of data on natural and human activities on and in the oceans)

3. coordination between sectoral policies: identification of contradictions and/or potential synergies.

The action plan foresees:

• the creation of a borderless European area for maritime transport

• a European strategy for marine research

• integrated national maritime policies to be developed by the member states

• an integrated network for maritime surveillance

• a road map for the rearrangement of maritime space by member states

• the fight against illegal fishing and a ban on the destructive practice of trawling on the high seas

• promoting a European network of maritime poles of activity (‘clusters’)

• a re-examination of the exemptions from EU labour legislation granted to the maritime transport and fisheries sectors

• a European network of observation of and data for the marine sector

• a strategy to mitigate the consequences of climate change on the coastal regions.

The implementation of the action plan began on the very day that it was published, with the presentation by (the former employment) Commissioner Spidla of a reexamination of the exemption from labour law in the maritime sector and the publication by Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs (the former energy commissioner) of a report on the interconnections between the EU’s energy policy and the new Integrated Maritime Policy.

There is ‘one’ sea, recalls the Commission, and all the activities carried out at sea interact
⁽¹⁾ COM(2007)574