The port-city coexistence will be overhauled by rewriting the rule of maritime spatial planning, forcing Port Authorities to consider themselves not as industrial enclaves but rather as part of the human-nature ecosystems of maritime regions
In the European Union, about 95 million citizens live along the 70,000 kilometers of coastline and 17 in the over 4’000 European islands, where the challenges of climate change, tourism and demographic stress have a peculiar unfolding. Overtourism is putting pressure on ecosystemic services and balance amid the ageing of populations of certain basins, which creates the basis for demographic decline and economic stagnation. Most of all, rising sea levels menace the very existence and current form of European coastline.
The new European Ocean Pact, together with the Coastal Communities Strategy (COM/2026/530) and Island Strategy (COM/2026/520), tries to tailor Communitarian action to foster sustainable development for both mainland and island coastal regions.
The Ocean Pact is based on six bold priorities: protecting and restoring ocean health; boosting the competitiveness of the EU sustainable blue economy; supporting coastal, island communities and outermost regions; advancing ocean research, knowledge, skills and innovation; enhancing maritime security and defence; strengthening EU Ocean diplomacy and international ocean governance.
A correct management and planning of the blue economy is one of the main scope of these priorities: offshore wind energy, pescatourism, bioeconomy are the basis to create high-quality job opportunities and transition towards better economic perspectives for maritime regions of EU. This will be paired with the approach of the EU, also seen in the Nature Restoration Law, to restore the health and biodiversity of seas, rivers and coastlines, where community-led solutions are encouraged to protect ecosystems and lower systemic pollution, though the EU Mission to Restore our Ocean and Waters. This is foreseen to be done with initiatives like the OceanEye program, designed to ease the access and use of ocean data by maritime businesses and communities to adopt resilient solutions.
On the other hand, amid data sharing and governance measures, a number of financial tools are to be developed, as the blue carbon credits, which local communities can obtain by demonstrating successful ocean conservation efforts. Communities can be directly paid for blue carbon credits, creating a strong incentive and call to action in a win-win strategy for environmental protection goals. A proposed Affordable Housing Act will also try to keep local communities at reach for rising living costs amid a touristification of many coastal towns, becoming more and more dependent on the low value-added tourism sector and still facing gentrified standard – higher prices, unaffordable housing costs, conversion of local businesses towards tourist-specific services.
Most importantly, all these policies will change how Port Authorities relate to their neighboring region: the port-city coexistence will be overhauled by rewriting the rule of maritime spatial planning, forcing Port Authorities to consider themselves not as industrial enclaves but rather as part of the human-nature ecosystems of maritime regions. Port masterplans must now actively accommodate local community needs, offshore renewable energy integration, and blue bioeconomy clusters. This shared governance model forces port executives to balance the relentless demand for global supply chain efficiency with the immediate preservation of local marine natural capital and coastal liveability. The governance model is coherent with the new TEN-T regulation where ports have been reconsidered as a significant part of SUMPs regulations, mandating participatory overlook, multimodality and connections with rail and road infrastructures. Still, the OceanEye initiative will provide Port Authorities and Logistics operators with unprecedented support to analyze and predict the effects of business strategies and regulatory policies.
The upcoming Ocean Act aims to democratize maritime governance, empowering local communities with a direct voice in shaping maritime spatial planning, while using monitoring tools as an envisioned EU Ocean Pact dashboard to track the progress of the Act. Still, Port Authorities are to be entitled a crucial role in balancing economic growth and sustainable goals, empowering their historic role to define maritime identity as gateway to the outer world.