EU public consultation on the Ocean Act

EU public consultation on the Ocean Act

ERRIN is collecting members' contributions to the European Commission public consultation on the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive and the Ocean Act.

The European Ocean Act aims to strengthen and modernise maritime spatial planning as a strategic tool that serves and implements the European Ocean Pact’s priorities. It should complement national efforts, ensuring efficient multi-level governance that respects regional and local input. The Act will support coherent and effective implementation of maritime governance, streamline and reduce reporting and help build an overarching framework, including for the Ocean Observation Initiative (Ocean Eye) and aligning existing maritime policies such as the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

For regional authorities, the Ocean Act represents a key opportunity to shape how maritime space in their ocean and sea basins is governed, recognising their role in maritime spatial planning, cross-border coordination and ocean monitoring. R.

ERRIN encourages all members to participate via Have Your Say by 16 July 2026, bringing forward your regional experience and territorial specificities as waterfront territories. Members planning to reply are kindly asked to inform ERRIN and share their submissions with ana.nava@errin.eu by 30 June 2026. This will allow ERRIN to monitor member positions and potentially feed them into a network response.

A Word document with the list of questions is available on this page. You can use it as a draft and eventually share it with us later. The full questionnaire has around 17 questions (mostly single- and multiple-choice). The final section ('Conclusion') allows respondents to add further comments on the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive revision and the development of the Ocean Act and to attach a supporting document to expand on the answers provided. ERRIN is particularly interested in your responses to these sections, gathering your regional perspective and priorities when it comes to coherent maritime governance, cross-sectoral coordination and multi-use considerations, stakeholder engagement and ocean observation and reporting targets.