CrossGov - Coherent and Cross-compliant Ocean Governance for Delivering the EU Green Deal for European Seas : Analysing the vertical coherence between national policies and EU frameworks. Deliverable 2.3

The analysis of vertical coherence between national policies and the regulatory frameworks set forth by European law aims at understanding what choices countries make in the transposition of EU policies and how this affects the vertical coherence between EU and national law and in turn the coherent delivery of the European Green Deal. The analysis focusses on the transposition of selected EU policies into the Member States’ legal order. The zooms in on transposition approaches concerning the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, the Water Framework Directive, Habitats and Birds Directives, Renewable Energy Directive II, and the Nitrates Directive in Germany, the Netherlands and Finland. The analysis commences by unpacking the incoherences uncovered at the horizontal EU level in relation to the interlinkages between different policies, and highlights how transposition often replicates those incoherences at the national level. Some attempts to address these incoherences at the domestic level are also flagged out, but the analysed practice (primarily the literal transposition of the EU policies) has mainly proven unsuccessful in this regard.