Marine Spatial Planning Framework Integration: Synergies, Compatibility and Incompatibility Issues. Evidence from Greece.

The Directive of the European Parliament and the Council of July 2014 established a general framework for Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) among EU Member States. The Directive aims to promote the sustainable development of marine areas and equitable use of marine resources. Within this context, Greece has initiated the procedure of the Directive’s transposition into the national legislation. This paper focuses on the examination of the terms for the integration of the MSP Directive in the national spatial planning system in Greece. The main research focus is the transposition of EU MSP Directive in Greece and the challenges Greek authorities have to face, in correlation with the basic problems of spatial planning in Greece. Taking into account that the Greek spatial planning system has a significant number of tools for integrating MSP guidelines at almost all planning levels, this paper begins with a detailed presentation of the main provisions for the marine areas of the spatial planning legislation and the system of spatial planning in Greece. It then proceeds to a critical presentation of the main issues related to the first effort to transpose the EU MSP Directive into national legislation at the end of 2016.