A first test in the European Parliament for the EU Budget: Global Europe must not fund overseas industrial fishing

08 July 2026

On July 9th, the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee will vote on its opinion on Global Europe, the EU’s proposed external action funding instrument under the next  Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). With a proposed budget of more than €200 billion for 2028-2034, it is meant to strengthen Europe’s position on the world stage through its partnerships, its foreign policy, its development work, and its strategic interests. 

The instrument, allegedly built around the principles that define the Commission’s legislative philosophy for this mandate, i.e., impact, flexibility, and coherence, is in fact solely built around a fourth principle: simplification. 

For fisheries, this file raises a controversial question: should EU public money continue to support a distant-water fishing model that gives a minute but destructive share of the EU fleet access to fish stocks in non-EU waters? The Fisheries Committee’s opinion on this regulation matters because Global Europe is closely linked to the external dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). This includes the EU’s so-called Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements, or SFPAs: multilateral agreements through which the EU operate in non-EU coastal States, many of them on the African continent, for access to their waters and fish stocks, as well as the activity of EU fleets in distant waters managed through Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), such as the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. 

In theory, these agreements are meant to be ‘sustainable partnerships’. In practice, they often serve a much narrower purpose: securing fishing opportunities abroad for a small number of EU vessels, mainly from a handful of Member States, while using public money to sustain a model that raises serious social, ecological and economic concerns. 

BLOOM’s research on the EU external fleets operating in Africa for the last 45 years  has shown how these agreements can benefit some of Europe’s largest and most fuel-intensive vessels. Our latest report, Wasted Billions, shows that around €100 million a year in public funds is dedicated to SFPAs, even though these agreements grant access to third-country waters for only 0,1% of the EU fleet, mainly Spanish, French and Dutch vessels. 

The wording of the PECH opinion matters, because as they stand, SFPAs raise concerns across four dimensions.  

Economically, they help maintain an external EU fleet that includes some of the largest, most fuel intensive and destructive fishing vessels in the world. They allow the European fleet’s overcapacity to shift into waters that remain richer in fish than EU waters, or to even generate new fishing capacity, as with the case of tuna seiners, which have never existed in their ‘tropical’ form in EU waters (i.e., gigantic, up to 116 m for the largest, and entirely dependent on destructive Fishing Aggregating Devices). 

Politically, to consolidate European influence over its former colonies through maritime diplomaсy disguised as ‘cooperation’, as the amounts of ‘development aid’ linked to fisheries agreements depend on the fishing opportunities offered to the EU, rather than on the real needs of the countries exploited. 

Socially, they reproduce unequal power relations between Europe and partner countries, through exploitation rooted in former colonial relations, especially where local communities depend on the same fish stocks for food, jobs and income.  

Ecologically, they shift the burden of extremely destructive fishing to the waters of third countries, exporting the unacceptable destruction of marine biodiversity to countries whose coastal populations rely heavily on these fish stocks as a source of protein and livelihoods. 

The logic of SFPAs therefore needs serious reform. If these agreements are to be called ‘sustainable partnerships’, they must be economically fair, socially just and environmentally sound.  

BLOOM has analysed the amendments tabled to the PECH opinion on the Global Europe Regulation to identify the main political lines, assess where the risks lie, and flag the red lines for the external dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy.  

“Food security” as a smokescreen

One claim that recurs across several amendments up for vote: distant-water fishing activities supported under Global Europe are said to be critical for the Union’s food security and sovereignty. This argument, put forward chiefly by EPP MEPs, is doubly flawed. First, it is paradoxical to invoke “food sovereignty” for seafood caught in the waters of third countries. Second, this framing erases the food security of the very populations in whose waters EU fleets are fishing. 

This rhetoric becomes even more troubling when some EPP MEPs, including Forza Italia’s Marco Falcone, describes SFPA-linked distant waters as Europe’s “traditional fishing grounds” (AM 89). There is nothing traditional about this. These waters only became central to European distant-water fishing after EU fleets expanded abroad, from late 1970s onwards, after depleting its own fishing grounds.   

Depleted stocks, degraded livelihoods

When European fleets fish in distant waters, especially in African Atlantic waters, they operate in countries that often depend heavily on marine resources for food, jobs and income. These countries also bear the full cost of stock depletion. The equation is simple: depleted stocks mean less food for local populations, fewer jobs for local fishers and workers, weaker coastal economies, and deeper poverty. These pressures can also contribute to migration, including towards Europe. The link between foreign fishing, declining fish stocks and migration from African coastal communities has been documented by scientific research. 

This is why the food security argument used by right-wing groups is so incoherent. The same political groups that constantly invoke the threat of migration cannot, in good faith, ignore the role that European fishing can play in weakening food security and livelihoods in African coastal states. 

SFPAs and RFMO-based activities have become a way for the European fishing sector to export its overcapacity to third-country waters after degrading its own. Left without strict conditions, these tools become instruments of neo-colonial extraction: they allow economic actors from Europe to consume the resources of countries in the Global South, while imposing their strategic presence in third-country waters and decision-making bodies such as Regional Fisheries Management Organisations. 

BLOOM has spent years documenting the interference of European institutions and industrial fishing lobbies, especially tuna lobbies, in these bodies. Our recent publication, European Com(pro)mission, adds to a long series of investigations into the European presence within the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC).  

This unprecedented analysis showed that official EU delegations to the IOTC are made up of 50% industrial fishing lobbyists. It also showed how, through the sheer size of its delegation, the European Commission overshadows the representation of countries in the Global South. 

In the IOTC, the European Commission, in coordination with Spain and France, has thrown its full weight behind the Franco-Spanish tuna lobby: one of the least transparent, most destructive and most heavily subsidised industrial players in the sector, with 45 very large vessels authorised to fish in the Indian Ocean.  

This is precisely why funds linked to distant-water fishing must come with strict conditions. EU money must not support, directly or indirectly, activities targeting stocks that are already under excessive pressure, or stocks that are vital for local food security and coastal livelihoods. 

This is also essential to uphold the Global Europe Regulation proposal itself. Article 12 states that the Union shall engage with partner countries through a comprehensive approach to migration, including action on its root causes. Recital 32 states that the instrument should strengthen the Union’s competitiveness by supporting sustainable, resilient and diversified value and supply chains, while reflecting high standards of responsible business practice. 

If these words are to mean anything, EU competitiveness cannot come at the expense of food security, social stability and marine ecosystems in the countries whose waters EU fleets fish.  

Feeding salmon in Europe, starving people in Mauritania

While many SFPAs concern tuna, others, such as the agreement with Mauritania, also cover small pelagic stocks (sardinella and similar species).  These fish are among the main sources of animal protein for local diets. Yet when they are caught by European fleets, including Latvia’s fleet, whose total catch depends on the Mauritania SFPA for around 50%, much of this fish ends up processed into fishmeal and fish oil. It is then used not to feed people, but to feed salmon, poultry and pigs in Europe. African fish are taken from African waters to feed animals in Europe, while European companies pocket the added value.  Resource extraction is not food security.  

Similar reduction fishing also takes place in European waters, including in the Baltic Sea, one of the most degraded seas in the world. A recent European Parliament own-initiative report called, with a large majority in favor, for a ban on reduction fishing in the Baltic Sea to allow local stocks to recover. 

If the EU supports such limits in its own waters but refuses to apply the same logic to distant-water fishing, it creates a glaring double standard: one rule to protect European waters, another for the waters of the Global South.  

Do No Significant Harm under attack

Another key fight concerns whether the Global Europe instrument should give priority to the “Do No Significant Harm” principle. Stemming from the recovery and resilience facility Regulation, this principle means not supporting financially economic activities that do significant harm to any environmental objectives including climate mitigation, climate adaptation, the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources. 
This horizontal principle applies to all the legislative proposals under the next MFF.   

Some MEPs, such as Spanish Green MEP Ana Miranda Paz, are seeking to strengthen this principle throughout the opinion. Others, including the EPP delegation and Portuguese MEP Paulo do Nascimento Cabral, are seeking to strip out references to this crucial safeguard. 

Spanish ECR MEP Nora Junco García defends an even more troubling position. Her Amendment 99 states that “environmental sustainability criteria must, however, be realistic and proportional, and must not constitute an excessive burden that penalises key Union sectors, such as fishing, for participating in the implementation of the Instrument.” 

This amendment makes the logic clear: environmental safeguards are treated not as a condition for responsible public spending, but as a burden on industrial sectors. 

That is unacceptable. If EU money is spent through Global Europe, it must not fund activities that damage marine ecosystems, undermine food security, or weaken coastal communities in partner countries. The Do No Significant Harm principle is the minimum safeguard needed to ensure that public money does not finance destruction.  

9 July: a first test for the next EU budget

The 9th of July vote on Global Europe is one of the first in a wider series of European Parliament votes that will shape EU ocean and fisheries funding from 2028 to 2034.  

The choice is clear: EU public money can support a healthy ocean, fair partnerships and thriving coastal communities, or it can continue to finance large-scale plundering of the ocean for the benefit of a tiny share of the EU fleet. 

Past trends in EU subsidies are clear: public money has financed greater fishing capacity and efficiency instead of marine protection and restoration. It has favored large industrial fleets over small-scale coastal fishers. It has lacked transparency, strict conditions and clear public-interest tests. 

Global Europe cannot claim to build fair partnerships while funding a model that exports fishing pressure abroad, weakens food security in partner countries and props up some of the most destructive industrial fleets in the world.  

The 9th of July vote will show whether the European Parliament wants its external action to deliver net gains for the ocean and coastal communities, or whether it will keep using public money to finance the plundering of our collective future.  

If the EU wants fairer and more beneficial subsidies, the autumn votes will be decisive. The European Parliament will take a position on EU fisheries subsidies through the votes on the Fisheries Sector Specific Regulation and the NRP Regulation. The Council will also adopt its position. 

We recommend both institutions to follow our joint NGO recommendations, endorsed by more than 60 organisations across Europe:  

The Regulation establishing the European Fund for economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural, fisheries and maritime, prosperity and security for the period 2028-2034 (NRP), must ensure: 

• That support contributes to the achievement of the objectives embodied in the core climate, environment and biodiversity EU legislations; 
• That support contributes to the protection, restoration and conservation of marine ecosystems, at the core of the climate stability; 
• That small-scale coastal fishers receive priority aid and support; 
• That the fisheries sector is properly equipped for its transition away from towed gears ; 
• Transparency on fund allocation and on the beneficiaries of the funds and operations funded.  

 

The Regulation establishing the conditions for the implementation of the Union support to the Common Fisheries Policy, to the European Ocean Pact and of the Union’s maritime and aquaculture policy (Fisheries Sector Specific), must ensure: 

• An allocation of 50% of the envelope to the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems (including data collection and control), and 50% for supporting small-scale coastal fishers and the transition away from the most destructive fishing techniques and support for bycatch mitigation measures; 
• No support for towed gears.