At their December 2013 meeting, the Nature, Marine and Water Directors recognised the need to further strengthen the coordination and cooperation between the different policy areas: marine, water and nature/biodiversity. As a further step, the Directors agreed to organise a workshop with representation from the different policy areas to discuss common understanding of the issues at stake (2-3 December 2014, Brussels).

As background document to this joint Water-Marine-Biodiversity-Nature workshop, a report has been developed to provide an overview on how Member States have treated the Protected Areas (PA) concerning Species and Habitats  in the making of the first River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) under the Water Framework Directive. The analysis addresses in particular the Natura 2000 sites designated under the Birds Directive 2009/147/EEC (Special Protection Areas) and/or under the Habitats Directive 92/43/EEC (Sites of Community Importance / Special Areas of Conservation) and focuses on their monitoring, status assessment, setting of additional objectives, and the inclusion of relevant measures in the first RBMPs.

The report identifies key implementation gaps, the main recommendations for the second cycle of RBMPs, and good examples that could be used for practice exchange.