Skip to content
DRAFT REPORT (2023/2124(INI))

On the EU Action Plan: protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries

PECH-PR-752944

Committee on Fisheries · Rapporteur: Niclas Herbst

Official HTML ↗ PDF DOCX
✦ In shortFull text
✦ In short · AI summary of this text, generated 7 Oct 2026

Written by a language model from the full text only; every figure comes from the text. The paragraph links open the paragraph a statement rests on — check the text itself before relying on it.

The Committee on Fisheries draft report responds to the Commission's EU Action Plan on protecting and restoring marine ecosystems. It criticises the plan for lacking coherence with other EU priorities, for proposing blanket bans on fishing gear in marine protected areas, and for unclear legal consequences. It asks for a competitiveness check and socio-economic impact assessment for the action plan, and for any restrictions to be mirrored on imported products. It also calls for the Eel Regulation to be respected and for measures outside it to be avoided. The report notes Member States' criticism and legal challenges to the action plan, and reaffirms Parliament's scrutiny of delegated and implementing acts linked to it.

Committee position. The rapporteur proposes that Parliament criticise the action plan for incoherence, lack of socio-economic assessment and unclear legal consequences, and call for a balanced approach that maintains fishing activity, respects the Eel Regulation, mirrors restrictions on imports, and includes a competitiveness check.

Key points

  1. Deplores that oceans face climate change, acidification and pollution from land-based activities beyond fishers' control, threatening livelihoods and marine ecosystems.
  2. Considers the action plan lacks coherence with other Commission priorities such as food security, strategic autonomy, a level playing field with non-EU countries, and the social dimension of the common fisheries policy.
  3. Regrets the lack of coherence between the action plan's title and its proposals, which focus on altering fishing practices without addressing alignment between fishing techniques and ecosystem protection or restoration.
  4. Insists marine protected areas are diverse and should not be treated uniformly; calls for balance between closing traditional fishing areas and maintaining fishing activity.
  5. Considers that closing zones to bottom trawlers is not simply a matter of moving vessels, as it fails to account for fishers' knowledge of the seabed and overlap with other vessels causing overexploitation and worse working conditions.
  6. Believes the multiplication of initiatives on the same fishing technique undermines coherence and predictability, and that short-term actions detract from consensus-based initiatives.
  7. Emphasises the complexity of eel stock management, stresses the Eel Regulation's holistic approach, and deplores that Council Regulation (EU) 2023/194 restricted eel fisheries with a six-month closure without proper consultation or impact assessment.
  8. Notes Member States' criticism of the action plan and their legal procedures against measures linked to it, underlining a lack of proportionality.
  9. Notes that although the action plan is not legally binding, its 90 measures will entail significant socio-economic costs, and regrets the Commission's contradictory statements on its legal consequences.
  10. Requests that the action plan and fisheries-related proposals include a competitiveness check on socio-economic impact and effect on coastal communities, and regrets the absence of a socio-economic study, impact assessment or additional financing measures.
  11. Calls for an action plan that contributes to productivity growth, a decent standard of living including for small-scale fisheries, stable markets and food availability, and welcomes data collection on recreational fisheries while underlining their economic and social impacts.
  12. Considers that any restrictions should be automatically mirrored on products imported from non-EU countries, given that the EU imports 70% of the fish it consumes, and stresses that mobile bottom-fishing gear accounts for 25% of total European catches.

Who is affected

  • EU fisheries sector, including small-scale and artisanal fishers, affected by restrictions and socio-economic costs.
  • Member States and their fleets, facing significant socio-economic costs and legal uncertainties from the action plan.
  • Brown shrimp sector, affected by damaging uncertainty over legal consequences.
  • Non-EU countries and operators, targeted by calls for mirrored restrictions on imports.
  • Coastal communities, affected by socio-economic impacts of the action plan.

Figures and deadlines

  • 87 areas closed to all bottom-fishing gear in EU waters of the north-east Atlantic.
  • 16 419 km2 total area closed, representing 17% of the area between 400 and 800 metres deep.
  • 90 measures in the action plan in the form of regulations, guidance, analyses, roadmaps, studies, reports and initiatives.
  • EU imports 70% of the fish it consumes.
  • Mobile bottom-fishing gear catches account for 25% of total European catches.
  • Six-month closure period for eel fisheries introduced by Council Regulation (EU) 2023/194.

Legal basis: Article 39 and Article 5 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.