View source for Marine Strategy Directive

The Marine Strategy Directive will be written from a marine viewpoint and its development was driven by the fact that no integrated policy focused on the protection of the European marine environment. It is still in its developmental phase, but one of its goals will be the determination of good environmental status (for habitat types, biological components, physico-chemical characteristics and hydromorphology) of marine waters by 2021.<ref>CEC (2005).''Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of marine environmental policy (Marine Strategy Directive)'', SEC(2005)1290, 26 October 2005, Brussels.</ref> 

The criteria and standards to determine this good environmental status will only be established once the Directive is in force, so it could be appropriate to use the same biological valuation criteria (at least for the biological elements covered by the proposed Directive) as selected here in order to achieve better agreement amongst these initiatives.

For more information on this Directive see http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/marine.htm

==References==

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