MSFD Supporting Documentation

OSPAR Contracting Parties that are EU Member States have agreed that the OSPAR Commission should be the main platform through which they coordinate their work to implement the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in the North-East Atlantic. The MSFD aims to achieve good environmental status for the EU Member States’ marine waters by 2020, applying the Ecosystem Approach. The Directive contains an obligation for EU Member States to cooperate to ensure the coordinated development of marine strategies for each marine region or sub-region and, where practical and appropriate, make use of existing institutional structures established in marine regions or sub-regions, in particular Regional Seas Conventions. The OSPAR Commission facilitates the implementation of the MSFD by implementing its North-East Atlantic Environment Strategy and by contributing to the further development of the elements of good environmental status under the MSFD, where relevant. Similarly, the implementation of the MSFD contributes towards OSPAR’s objectives.

A suite of documentation has been developed to support Contracting Parties that are EU member states to implement the MSFD and to assist their reporting obligations.

Article 11 Monitoring Programmes

OSPAR’s Coordinated Environmental Monitoring Programme Appendices set out details of the agreed monitoring and assessment approaches for each component of OSPAR’s themes including the approaches to be applied to realise coordination of monitoring and assessment. The Appendices have been adapted to align with the European Commission’s requirements for MSFD reporting and are available in the OSPAR Assessment Portal (OAP). The purpose is to assist those Contracting Parties that are EU member states in their national reporting commitments for MSFD Article 11 Monitoring Programmes. The CEMP Appendices are also included as metadata for the relevant data layers in ODIMS.

Article 13 Programmes of Measures

Article 13 of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) requires Member States to develop a Programme of Measures (PoM). OSPAR produced an overview of existing OSPAR measures in support of MSFD programmes of measures – ‘OSPAR acquis’. This has been further developed in OSPAR’s measures and actions programme (MAP) and in particular the MAP matrix.

OSPAR developed a Joint Documentation on Coordination of Measures (Marine Strategy Framework Directive) to highlight where there is existing or possible coherence, coordination and cooperation, in order to show the way the Contracting Parties that are EU Member States are cooperating to realise Article 5.2 of the MSFD: ensuring that their marine strategies are coherent and coordinated across the OSPAR region. Thus, the document is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all national measures.