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Europe needs an Ocean Act for a strategic maritime era
Jul 06, 2026
COMMENTARYPhoto credits: EPC
Brooke MoorePolicy Analyst
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As the EU Ocean Act Conference convenes in Ireland this week, attention is rightly turning to the future of Europe’s ocean governance. In a world of intensifying geopolitical rivalries and escalating climate change, the ocean has become a strategic domain where questions of competitiveness, energy security, defence, food systems and climate resilience converge.
The European Ocean Act, expected later this year, should be more than a technical revision: it is a chance to move beyond fragmented sectoral policy and build a strategic framework for managing interconnected priorities across the maritime domain.
For example, offshore renewables can help reduce dependence on imported oil and gas, improve energy affordability and support net-zero targets. Advances in ocean observation technologies and AI are improving the monitoring of critical infrastructure, optimising shipping routes and strengthening maritime vessel safety. Marine biotechnology, including algae-based fertilisers, could reduce agricultural import dependence. At the same time, healthy oceans absorb around one-third of global CO₂ emissions while safeguarding the ecosystem services that not only the blue economy, but Europe’s long-term prosperity depend on.
The problem is that EU ocean governance has not kept pace with the scale of these demands. It is still too fragmented to unlock sectoral opportunities, protect the ecosystem services that sustain them, or manage the trade-offs now emerging across Europe’s seas. The result is a persistent implementation gap: marine biodiversity loss continues, marine protected areas are unevenly managed, sustainable aquaculture growth is constrained and rebuilding fish stocks remains mostly out of reach. Intensifying climate impacts are adding further pressure, driving port closures, costly shipping diversions and supply chain delays, threatening infrastructure and systems that support needs from trade to military mobility. Meanwhile, offshore renewables, fisheries, biodiversity conservation, maritime security and critical infrastructure increasingly compete for the same finite maritime space, while opportunities for compatible multi-use – such as offshore wind supporting fish stock recovery – remain only in their infancy.
The European Ocean Pact was introduced in 2025 based on a recognition of this problem: fragmented governance is no longer fit for an interconnected maritime domain. Its legislative vehicle, the forthcoming European Ocean Act, is expected to build on the existing Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, which coordinates how marine space is allocated between uses. But the Act should go further than strengthening maritime spatial planning. It should establish a broader framework for strategic decision-making across the maritime domain.
Strengthen the operating framework
The Ocean Act should establish a clear operating framework for maritime decision-making through binding targets. In particular, Good Environmental Status – the EU’s benchmark for healthy marine ecosystems – should be formalised alongside commitments such as protecting 30% of EU seas by 2030. Together, these targets should define the ecological boundaries within which decisions on marine activities are made. Coupled with an enabling financial framework, they could create greater predictability for authorities and investors alike, while helping align economic and security-related projects with the healthy marine ecosystems upon which they ultimately depend.
Strengthen maritime spatial planning as a strategic governance tool
As the principal implementation mechanism for the Ocean Act, MSP must evolve from a largely procedural exercise into a strategic decision-making tool.
A first step would be to establish the Ocean Act as a regulation. Although member states share interconnected sea basins, MSP varies considerably in legal status, scope and implementation. A regulation would ensure greater consistency while preserving sufficient flexibility for national circumstances. Moreover, the Act could require an overarching Ocean Plan that integrates planning and reporting across the EU’s most relevant ocean-related legislation, supporting a whole-of-ocean approach to spatial and investment planning aligned with the EU’s climate and environmental targets.
MSP must also evolve from documenting how marine space is used to actively pursuing synergies across sectors, ensuring finite space is allocated more strategically, while also managing trade-offs from competing demands. This requires clearer procedures for conflict resolution, long-term climate projections and the use of tools such as Cumulative Impact Assessments. Additionally, greater investment in research, stakeholder engagement and adaptive planning, would help identify compatible multi-use opportunities and support more informed spatial decisions.
Strengthen enabling conditions
Stronger ocean governance requires stronger enabling conditions, particularly in accessing finance and better data. By promoting harmonised reporting and secure cross-sector and cross–border data sharing, particularly through permanent arrangements for sea-basin and third-country cooperation, the Act could improve decision-making while supporting tools such as the proposed Ocean Dashboard to strengthen transparency, monitoring and accountability.
Increased public and private investment will be critical to address competing priorities and enable multi-use synergies in the maritime domain. The Ocean Act can itself strengthen the investment environment by requiring a more integrated assessment of financing needs, embedding a whole-of-ocean approach to investment planning and improving regulatory certainty. Together, these measures would help target scarce public funding more strategically while creating the transparency and long-term direction needed to mobilise private capital.
The Ocean Pact rightly recognises that Europe’s seas are central to competitiveness, sustainability and security. The Ocean Act must now translate that recognition into governing capacity: the ability to identify synergies, manage trade-offs and deliver integrated outcomes across the maritime domain. Without that shift, the EU risks weakening its ability to compete and lead in a world where oceans increasingly shape not only resilience, but economic and geopolitical influence.
Brooke Moore is a Policy Analyst in the Sustainable Prosperity for Europe Programme at the European Policy Centre.
This EPC Commentary is part of the project, “A watershed moment: the role of ocean health in advancing the EU’s competitiveness and security” undertaken by the European Policy Centre (EPC) with the support of the Oceano Azul Foundation.
The support the European Policy Centre receives for its ongoing operations, or specifically for its publications, does not constitute an endorsement of their contents, which reflect the views of the authors only. Supporters and partners cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
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