Policy and legislation

This portal gives an overview of the most relevant policy and regulatory instruments in the marine or maritime context, that apply in full or in part to the Belgian part of the North Sea, to the coastal area or to the Scheldt estuary; this means across the different policy levels (i.e. international, European, federal and Flemish) (see also Verleye et al. 2018). Please note that the legislation mentioned in this document is only a selection of the existing legislative instruments and cannot be considered as an exhaustive list. On the Flemish and federal level, the portal focusses on ‘decrees’ and ‘laws’ respectively. The implementation decisions that are linked to these laws and decrees are not taken into account. In order to consult these decisions, we refer to the consolidated versions in the Belgian official journal and in the Justel-database. More information about the available expertise regarding policy and legislation within the Belgian marine research groups can be consulted by clicking ‘Research groups’.