Lessons learned

• Author: CETMAR, COGEA, Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (European Commission), POSEIDON, Seascape Belgium, Universidade de Vigo
• Pages: 105-203

Study on the Economic Impact of MSP

195

comments might be addressed, given the timeframe of the study, and th e requests set

out in the Tender Specifications.

Several participants pointed out that environmental benefits and ecosystem services

should be taken into account in such a study. However, this was beyond the scope of

this project and will be addressed in another project soon.

The chairperson thanked all reviewers and C onsortium partners for bei ng open to the

comments received, the very g ood supp ort an d organisation and the professiona lism

displayed.

DG MARE stated that th e project provides interesting results and the workshop

discussions were very i nteresting. As formally required in the contract, a report of this

workshop will need to be provided as an annex to the final report (see Ann ex II).

6 Lessons learned

Overall, the results of t he case study are very much in line with the limited available

literature on the economic impact of MSP, as reported in the first three chapters of

this report.

The following sections seek to answer c ertain research questions, based on the study

findings.

6.1 Does MSP generate economic benefits

The 5 case studi es developed for th is study seem to indicate that MSP does generate

economic benefits when it is implemented. Belgium and Germany are clear examples

of that. In Norway, the overall impact is negative, but that is largely due to the

downward trend of the oil and gas industry, which, h owever, does not seem to b e

influenced by MSP at all. In Scotland and Rhode Island, it might be too early to draw

conclusions grounded on statistical analysis, but the general perception among

stakeholders is that MSP is benefitting the blue economy, or at least part of it .

Nevertheless, there cannot possibly be an unequivocal answer to this question. At i ts

heart, MSP is a policy choice of allocating marine space to different, competing

economic sectors, bas ed on an array of criteria set by a planning authority. There i s

no guarantee that the practice can generate economic benefits per se; nor does it

have to in the first place, as throughout the study we have seen that when many

countries resolve to implement MSP – the Norwegi an case study epitomises this – they

are primarily driven by environmental concerns, and thus they m ight in theory be

willing to pursue it, even if the strictly economy impact were negative.

However, there is a number of reasons for thinking that, besides being a legal

obligation for EU Member States starting from 2021, it might be a wise idea to

establish MSP also to spur growth in the blue economy. For millennia, humans used

the oceans essentially for procuring food and m oving goods and people from one place

to another. More recently, however, the emergence of new technologies has

transformed the oceans in a source of economic prosperity and sustainable growth,

beyond i ts traditi onal uses. Today, the blue economy encompasses activities such as

offshore wind energy, marine renewable energy, seaweed cultivation, etc.

All these activities compete for the same ocean space. In some cases, they are

mutually exclusive, while in some other cases they can peacefully co-exist and also

create synergies with each other; ei ther way, a framework to regu late them is

necessary. Fishing and shipping contended for ocean space by and large based on the

principle of “first come, first served”. With many more activities that could potentially

exploit the same area, “first com e, first served” might not mak e much sense from the