The biogeographic region known as European Macaronesia comprises the archipelagos of the Azores, Canary Islands and Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. The collective exclusive economic zones surrounding the archipelagos is a vast area of approximately two million km2. The Directive 2014/89/EU of the European Union (EU) obliged EU Member States, including their archipelagos, to pursue sustainable use of their waters through Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). Planning the large marine areas of the Macaronesia is not an easy endeavour, particularly when establishing the domestic frameworks for MSP implies sharing of competences among national and subnational authorities and is dependent on inter-departmental collaboration. Furthermore, the complexity of MSP arrangements, including legislation, governance, planning processes and documentation, is a barrier to coherent regional MSP and the application of the ecosystem approach, due to a lack of understanding across borders. This paper reviews and synthetises the national and subnational frameworks for MSP in the Macaronesian archipelagos. It also compares the principles guiding MSP in each archipelago to determine the coherence across the region, with the aim of outlining the basis for transboundary cooperation in the European Macaronesia.En prens
