Protecting seas in the European Union 

EU member states have committed to end overfishing by 2020 at the latest; to fight Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing; to implement the WTO agreement on the elimination of harmful fisheries subsidies; and to restore marine ecosystems. These commitments exist on paper, but are far from being fully implemented. 

Despite also committing to the 30 per cent protection goal for its seas, with 10 per cent under strict protection, the EU has so far designated only 12 per cent of its waters MPAs, with less than 1 per cent strictly protected.

Blue Marine established an office in Brussels in 2024 and we recruited our first employee in 2025. Since then, we have developed an EU strategy to work on three key topics: 

• Ending overfishing; 

• Ensuring that the EU designates and effectively manages 30 per cent of its waters as MPAs; 

• Putting an end to EU subsidies which are harmful to the marine environment. 

At EU Ocean Week in 2025, various EU stakeholders attended events co-organised by Blue Marine and other NGOs. We brought low-impact fishers from Blue Marine projects in Italy and Greece to Brussels to make the case for MPAs that support this kind of fishing.

With partners Environmental Justice Foundation, we submitted a complaint to the European Commission in April 2025 on the lack of measures against bottom-trawling in Italian MPAs. We also supported legal action in the Netherlands and Germany over shrimp trawling in coastal MPAs. An interim measure to partially protect the Dogger Bank in Dutch and German waters came into force in November 2025. In addition, Blue Marine has been invited to advise the Irish government on the designation and management of an MPA network by 2030.

To find out more about our policy work in the EU, you can read our latest reports:

• Is the EU on track to achieve 30 per cent protection of its waters by 2030?
• Are fish stocks in the European Union healthy?
• The Next EU Budget: Investing in ocean resilience and thriving coastal communities