The European Commission is looking at the marine and maritime industry to help Europe’s economic recovery. The European Commission has released its ‘Blue Growth‘ strategy and included in areas of growth is the offshore wind energy industry.

The European Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is predicting the offshore wind energy industry will have a five-fold increase in offshore wind jobs within the decade. In support of this, ‘Blue Growth’ includes offshore wind as a key element of current and future economic growth. The industry contributes to Europe’s competitiveness while also benefiting other industrial sectors such as the manufacturers of the wind turbines and its components.

“EWEA has estimated 35,000 people were employed in jobs related to the offshore wind sector in 2010,” said Anne-Bénédicte Genachte, EWEA’s regulatory affairs advisor for offshore wind, “and this will increase to 170,000 by 2020. EWEA welcomes the Commission’s strategy for the maritime sector and hopes concrete policy initiatives will follow. More specifically, EWEA looks forward to the legislative proposal on Maritime Spatial Planning the Commission should publish soon. Maritime Spatial Planning is key to Blue Growth and should not be further delayed.”

EWEA says to achieve the industry’s expected growth the offshore wind sector requires a policy framework that provides long term regulatory certainty.