Juan Luis Suárez de Vivero

Steps toward a shared governance response for achieving Good Environmental Status in the Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean region is of fundamental importance to Europe given its strategic position. The responsibility for its overall ecosystem integrity is shared by European Union Member States (EU-MS) and other Mediterranean countries. A juxtaposition of overlapping governance instruments occurred recently in the region, with the implementation of both the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) for EU-MS and the Ecosystem Approach Strategy (ECAP) for all Mediterranean countries, including EU-MS. Both MSFD and ECAP are structured around vision-driven processes to achieve Good Environmental Status and a Healthy Environment, respectively. These processes have clear ecosystem-based, integrated policy objectives to guarantee the preservation and integrity of Mediterranean marine ecosystem goods and services. However, adoption of these instruments, especially those related to the new EUMS directives on marine policy, could result in a governance gap in addition to the well-known economic gap between the EU and the non-EU political blocs. We identify two complementary requirements for effective implementation of both MSFD and ECAP that could work together to reduce this gap, to ensure a better alignment between MSFD and ECAP and better planning for stakeholder engagement. These are key issues for the future success of these instruments in a Mediterranean region where discrepancies between societal and ecological objectives may pose a challenge to these processes.

The Mediterranean and Black Sea: regional integration and maritime nationalism

Cooperation is the core mechanism in UNCLOS for the management of enclosed and semi-enclosed seas. There is a sizeable history of cooperation between the coastal States in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea based on politics and socio-economics, but conditions have changed greatly over the last 20 years. The processes of regional integration, centred, fundamentally, on the northern shore, and expressions of nationalism, including maritime nationalism, are shaping a new stage on which to strive for the cooperative system which is essential for the governance of a sea where sharp imbalances and demographic pressure that, in the short term, point to a significant worsening of environmental conditions, coexist.

Atlantic archipelagic regions: self-government and ocean management in the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands

This paper examines regional government competences in relation to their maritime space and management resources. The inherently oceanic character of insular regions has had an influence on self-governing which is now clearly oriented towards the sea environment on which they depend for development. At the same time, their insularity sets limitations on them and places them in an unadvantageous position in relation to other non-insular regions. The tendency to deepen their political autonomy, emphasizing the maritime dimension of their territory, results in greater claims for competences to manage the ocean, as well as in the emergence of tensions between central government and regional government.

New factors in ocean governance. From economic to security-based boundaries

The sinking of the Prestige oil-tanker and the implementation of the Ulysses plan to control new flows of migrants by sea give new significance to the establishment of sea boundaries, with the emphasis changing from the original economic factors to others more security linked. At the same time, the crisis of multilateralist agreements as a global model is running the risk of affecting ocean governance. This would lead to the adoption of unilateral (restrictions on sailing through EEZs) in a quest for greater security understood as a counter to environmental, migratory and military threats.

The Spanish Shores Act and its implications for regional coastal management

Abstract The new arrangement of the Spanish States territory following the Constitution of 1978 led to the decentralization of many administrative decisions on such subjects as territorial planning, coastal management and urban planning, which were transferred to the different regional governments. Ten years later, the States General of Spain passed a new Shores Act (1988). The result of these two actions has been the creation of a new framework for coastal management in which the three administrative levels: government, regional governments and town councils, carry out their jurisdictions.

Integrated Coastal Management in Spain

In my contribution I shall try to give a sketch of the general coastal management model in force in Spain with special reference to the Mediterranean area, which makes up some 40% of all coastal space. To this end I shall examine some fundamental factors in coastal management as well as evaluating the ability of the present model to progress towards a more integrated system.