Fishing from the EU budget: Beneficial, Fair & Transparent?

31 July 2025

At this critical moment for transition, the proposed new EU budget and funding regime must support the Union’s climate and environmental objectives by directing fair and transparent subsidies toward sustainable fisheries and the restoration of marine ecosystems. It cannot continue to fuel the destruction of the ocean and marine life for the short-term benefit of the few, especially as scientists warn that a 4°C rise in global temperatures could lead to catastrophic social, ecological, and economic collapse.

On 16 July, the European Commission unveiled three long-awaited legislative proposals outlining the 2028 to 2034 EU budget:

• the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF),
• the Own Resources Decision, and a
• Horizontal Regulation setting out the overall architecture of EU funding.

The MFF sets the European Union’s budget for a seven-year period. It defines the amounts available, the priorities to be pursued, and the conditions attached to funding.

The Horizontal Regulation establishes a National and Regional Partnership (NRP) Fund that brings together funding previously allocated to agriculture, fisheries, rural development, cohesion policy, and other regional and territorial programmes. Member States will be required to prepare and submit partnership plans to access this funding.

Two days later, on 18 July, a draft regulation was published outlining how EU funds will support the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the Ocean Pact, and aquaculture.

As these pieces of legislation are finalised and agreed, BLOOM is campaigning to ensure EU fisheries subsidies are aligned with the EU’s environmental and social objectives. To shift from a net loss to a net gain for citizens, fishers and marine ecosystems, the future funding framework must ensure subsidies are beneficial, fair, and transparent.

Beneficial?

For the 2028 to 2034 cycle, the Commission is proposing to replace dedicated programmes that have existed for the last 30 years including the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) with a single funding stream managed through national partnership plans. This shift gives more discretion to Member States and reduces EU-level oversight, leaving space for national governments to deprioritise shared EU environmental and social goals.

There is no guarantee that public funds will support the restoration or protection of marine ecosystems. The EU’s only fund fully dedicated to the environment and nature conservation, the LIFE programme, has been scrapped. How, then, can we ensure that environmental spending is not sidelined without clear earmarking? As extreme weather events and biodiversity loss intensify, the cost of climate inaction will far exceed that of prevention.

We welcome the conditions included in the draft fisheries regulation referring to key international obligations, including the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies and the EU’s commitment to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. We also welcome the exclusion of funding for deep sea mining, and confirmation that funding must be aligned with available fishing opportunities.

However, the rules for how fisheries subsidies will be granted in practice are not yet established, and many essential safeguards to ensure subsidies support CFP and marine environmental objectives are missing.

There is currently nothing to prevent EU funds being used to increase fleet capacity where stocks are already depleted.

The draft regulation also fails to define what kind of energy transition public money should support. Fossil fuel use is not addressed, and unlike deep-sea mining, oil and gas exploration or exploitation are not excluded from funding.

The final legislation must ensure subsidies:

• Support fisheries with a low environmental impact, reduced use of energy-intensive gear, and greater social value;
• Fund the restoration and protection of marine ecosystems with earmarked funding;
• Provide strict eligibility conditions to ensure harmful gear types and fleet capacity increases are not subsidised;

Fair?

There is no earmarking for small-scale fishers and nothing to prevent subsidies continuing to support destructive industrial fishing at the cost of small-scale sustainable fisheries and coastal communities.

The final legislation must ensure subsidies:

• Guarantee that a set percentage of funding is earmarked for small-scale fishers and their representational structures for small-scale fishing communities;
• Provide simplified procedures and direct access to funds for coastal and artisanal fishers;
• Invest wisely in a transition for the fisheries sector that will ensure generational renewal of small-scale fishers or their transition outside fisheries towards maritime activities that will maintain a vibrant social and cultural fabric of coastal communities.

Transparent and conditional?

While the Horizontal Regulation provides a general framework for how national partnership plans should be structured and monitored, many sector-specific details have not yet been defined. Without clear rules, binding criteria and transparency, there is no guarantee that EU funding will serve environmental and social priorities.

On enforcement, conditions remain weak. A vessel operator who commits a serious infringement is excluded for five years, but after that period, there is no obligation to recover funds or ensure continued compliance.

The new structure has been presented as a simplification, yet in practice it involves more legislative layers than before. Simplification should not come at the expense of spending EU public money properly and transparently which means closing loopholes, stronger conditionality requirements and full transparency.

The final legislation must ensure:

• Complete and non-anonymised data on subsidy recipients, including vessel identifiers and subsidy purpose are published;
• The ban on subsidies to IUU fishing vessels is fully enforceable, with penalties, long-term ineligibility, and recovery of funds in case of violations;
• Binding objectives and sanctions for non-compliance of the CFP legal framework and other relevant environmental and social legislations.

A call to action

Funding for fisheries has potentially been drastically reduced from six billion Euros to a minimum of just two billion. It is critical then that this money is spent well so prioritising support to CFP and environmental objectives with strong eligibility conditions, full transparency and associated compliance mechanisms must be ensured.

• The European Commission needs to propose a strong National & Regional Partnership fund regulation with conditions for funding that reflect environmental and social objectives with a strong vision for the necessary transition that the fisheries sector needs to undertake.
• We must move away from destructive and energy intensive gears and support the development of a truly sustainable and fair fishing sector for fish populations and our coastal communities. Without the right support from EU funds, this future will vanish alongside the health of our ocean and our fish stocks.
• EU Member States and the European Parliament need to step up to ensure a budget and funding regime that is truly beneficial, fair, and transparent.