28 July 2025
Victory for the ocean: The European Union’s General Court rules in BLOOM’s favour against the European Commission and the tuna lobby
28 July 2025
In a ruling dated 23 July 2025, the General Court of the European Union annulled the European Commission’s decision to reject BLOOM’s request to withdraw its objection to a crucial biodiversity protection measure adopted in February 2023 by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC): the ban on drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) in the Indian Ocean. The European Commission will now have to review its position. This ruling paves the way once again for a ban on these devastating devices, used by the tens of thousands each year by a handful of French and Spanish companies.
These technological rafts are ruthlessly effective at attracting tuna that end up in Princes and Petit Navire cans, but in the process they cause mass underwater slaughter of endangered sharks, rays and turtles, and contribute to unacceptable marine pollution in the already fragile ecosystems of coral reefs and coastal mangroves.
A drifting FAD stranded on the coral reefs of the Mayotte Marine Park (https://parc-marin-mayotte.fr/actualites/echouage-dun-dispositif-de-concentration-de-poissons-dcp-derivant-issu-dun-thonier).
Context: a breakthrough sabotaged by the European Commission in 2023
Thanks to the courage and strategy of around ten coastal States of the Indian Ocean, the IOTC adopted in February 2023 — for the first time in the region — a historic resolution banning the use of drifting FADs for three months each year. But this unprecedented environmental advance was immediately sabotaged by the European Commission, which represents the EU in these international negotiations.
Even before the resolution was voted on, the European Commission exerted such economic pressure on Kenya — the original proponent of the text — that the country attempted to withdraw it, before it was saved in extremis by other member States, led by Indonesia and the Maldives. But as soon as the vote passed, the Commission declared it would use all its diplomatic power to torpedo the resolution, using the IOTC rule that allows any State to object and thereby escape its obligations, while aiming for its complete annulment if one-third of the members raised objections.
It must be said that the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) has shamelessly sided with industry for years — whether in support of French and Spanish tuna fishing, or Dutch electric trawlers.
Read our analysis of the European Commission’s fallacious arguments justifying its objection
And so, within just six months, 11 countries objected to this historic resolution — including Kenya (!), the EU, France (1), and of course Thailand, home of the tuna giant Thai Union, owner of the well-known John West and Petit Navire brands — rendering the resolution null and void before it could even take effect.
A turtle trapped by a Spanish FAD off the coast of Madagascar. Its left flipper is nothing but a stump; the scales on its head have been ripped off; its body is covered in goose barnacles, an encrusting crustacean.
A whale shark, visibly injured, trapped by a French tuna seiner using drifting FADs in the Indian Ocean.
The Court rules in BLOOM’s favour
Faced with this democratic failure, BLOOM first requested (2) that the European Commission withdraw its objection to IOTC Resolution 23/02 concerning the management of Fish Aggregating Devices. The Commission rejected the request, claiming it was legally inadmissible without addressing the substance. BLOOM then took the case to the EU Court, arguing that the Commission had clearly breached its legal obligations: under EU law, any international position must align with the Union’s environmental commitments—something the objection to a temporary FAD ban clearly violated.
On 23 July 2025, the General Court ruled that the Commission should not have deemed our request inadmissible. This judgment represents an important legal step — unprecedented to our knowledge — by recognizing that an objection by the Commission can be contested. It thus acknowledges the possibility of challenging an act of EU diplomatic conduct when it includes provisions potentially violating environmental law.
Although the ruling may still be appealed before the EU’s highest court (3), it already reopens the door to implementing the 2023 resolution, currently void. In fact, in 2024 the European Commission secured a further guarantee that its industrial players would not be impacted, by demanding a new resolution — far less ambitious and without a temporary ban — that included a clause repealing the 2023 resolution. However, the United Nations’ legal services, which oversee the IOTC, objected to this clause and had it removed.
If one or more objections were now withdrawn, the 2023 resolution would come back into force!
A clear signal: law first, lobbyists second
Following the Court’s reasoning, the European Commission will now be required to justify its position on substantive grounds, no longer hiding behind technicalities. Should it withdraw its objection, the IOTC resolution could finally come into force, effectively banning drifting FADs for three months in the Indian Ocean — a measure that would have an immediate, tangible impact on the protection of thousands of vulnerable and endangered marine animals.
This ruling marks the first crack in the wall of impunity shielding the industrial tuna sector — one that BLOOM has been documenting for years: conflicts of interest, opacity, aggressive tax optimisation, ecological destruction, and resource grabbing… all subsidised by EU taxpayers.
Read all our reports in the “TunaGate” series
Next step: the withdrawal of the objections
BLOOM has also taken legal action against France over its own objection to the resolution. The French Council of State has yet to deliver its verdict, but it can now rely on the EU General Court’s ruling to reach a similar conclusion. Regardless, France clearly does not need to wait for a court ruling to make the right decision and withdraw its objection.
We therefore call on President Emmanuel Macron and Minister of Ecology Agnès Pannier-Runacher to urgently withdraw France’s objection and take concrete action to protect the ocean — especially after the failure of the United Nations Ocean Conference held in Nice last June.
We also call on the new European Commission — particularly Fisheries Commissioner Kóstas Kadís, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and First Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera — to break with the era of backroom deals with nature destroyers.
We will not back down. This legal victory is a huge breath of fresh air for the ocean and for citizens, stifled by a series of democratic and environmental setbacks.
Notes
(1) France has its own seat, on top of being within the EU delegation, thanks to its ‘Scattered’ islands, uninhabited, in the Mozambique Channel.
(3) The Commission has two months to appeal.