This study aimed to contribute to debates related to European aquaculture development as well as to environmental justice literature by analyzing existing finfish aquaculture conflicts in Europe and by linking them

to the policy level. It underlines that while establishing new strategies for European aquaculture, the focus should not be solely on economic growth, but rather on ecologically, socially and economically sustainable and just development of marine aquaculture. Integration of economic, social and ecological concerns into national and regional aquaculture strategy plans proves to be potentially challenging but necessary in order to ensure social acceptance of fish farms and to control the impacts of new and already existing ones. The article concludes by emphasizing the significance of marine Etoposide manufacturer finfish aquaculture conflicts in Europe and the lessons to be learned in terms of their policy implications. An effective participatory decision-making mechanism should be designed that takes the views and perceptions of all relevant actors into account in order to determine whether or not to construct fish farms; and if yes, where to build them and how many. Best practices safeguarding environmental justice such as the establishment of inclusive decision-making mechanisms, ensuring

access to transparent information Luminespib concentration and an equitable social distribution of burdens, benefits and risks resulting from aquaculture activities should be further investigated and incorporated into future policies. Research for this paper benefited from EC funding under the Marie Curie Actions – Initial

Immune system Training Networks – FP7 – PEOPLE – 2011; Contract no. 289374 – “ENTITLE”. The research would not have been made possible without the support of interviewees who kindly shared their opinions and knowledge. The authors especially desire to acknowledge Seas at Risk network for facilitating contact and the valuable comments and efforts of Begüm Özkaynak, Pınar Ertör Akyazı, Santiago Gorostiza Langa, Melissa Garcia Lamarca and Marien González Hidalgo. “
“The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) aims to achieve and/or maintain Good Environmental Status (GES) of EU marine waters by 2020. The Directive defines GES as: “The environmental status of marine waters where these provide ecologically diverse and dynamic oceans and seas which are clean, healthy and productive” (MSFD Article 3). GES is described by a comprehensive set of 11 qualitative descriptors. Descriptor 5 relates specifically to eutrophication and states that the human-induced eutrophication should be minimized. One of the first steps that had to be finished until July 2012 was the initial assessment of Member States׳ marine waters (Art. 8 MSFD), the determination of GES (Art. 9 MSFD) and the establishment of environmental targets and associated indicators to achieve GES (Art. 10 MSFD).