IMPLEMENTATION OF MARINE STRATEGY FRAMEWORK DIRECTIVE IN ROMANIA

The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD; European Commission 2008) aims at achieving or maintaining a Good Environmental Status (GES) by 2020 in marine waters, following an ecosystem-based approach. According to MSFD, GES is defined in terms of 11 descriptors using a number of criteria and indicators associated to each descriptor. By the end of 2012, in Romania first steps have been undertaken in the directive implementation, including its transposition into national legislations and the preparation of the Initial Assessment (IA) (Art. 8), determination of Good Environmental Status (GES) (Art. 9), and setting Environmental Targets and Indicators (Art. 10). The MSFD process further included the development of a Monitoring and Measures Programme, as the work on the latter started in 2015 and was finalised in 2017. The aim of this paper is to describe the preparation process of the MSFD in Romania which took place up to 2017.