The Challenges for Maritime Spatial Planning in Sweden : Results from the compliance process with Directive 2014/89/EU on developing and implementing MSP

This thesis seeks to identify change processes triggered by Directive 2014/89/EU in Swedish law, administration and policies connected to maritime governance within the country. In this regard, it poses the research question of How successful is Sweden in implementing directive 2014/89/EU? The findings indicated that Sweden is facing challenges of institutional and administrative character as well as issues connected to the overall character of spatially planning its maritime areas. This is with regards to the fact that Sweden did not have any MSP established before the Directive came into force and hence, MSP proves to be a completely new planning approach for the country. Nevertheless, the findings of this thesis indicate that Sweden is successfully managing the compliance process until now, although certain aspects of detected compliance challenges are still unsolved.