The main objective of the report is to present the approach of maritime spatial planning (MSP) as well as to outline some of the challenges arising when applied in practice. A specific objective is to explain the importance of MSP for the Black Sea maritime area under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Bulgaria and to highlight its potential and limitations.

For this purpose, information is used both for individual member states on the European Union (EU) from the MSP Platform (http://www.msp-platform.eu) as well as from scientific publications and results of the good practices study in different sea basins. Analyzed literature shows that the MSP practice has evolved over the past two - three decades. As the MSP so far has not been applied as an „across-the-board“ approach, significant part of the report is based on the "European" expectations rather than concrete evidence of success.