CCB´s response to the Call for Evidence of the EU Oceans Pact
CCB • March 5, 2025
What is the Oceans Pact?
The Commission defines this Pact as a political initiative that aims to promote sustainable ocean management and ensure the health, resilience, and productivity of the oceans and thus the prosperity of the EU’s coastal communities. The pact was announced by President Von Der Leyen in her political guidelines for the next European Commission (2024-2029) and aims to bring coherence across all EU policy areas linked to oceans.
The Oceans Pact will target 3 pillars:
- Maintain a healthy, resilient, & productive ocean.
- Promote a sustainable and competitive blue economy, including fisheries & aquaculture.
- Work towards a comprehensive agenda for marine knowledge, research, innovation, & investment.
It will also look at:
- how we affect the ocean
- how the ocean affects coastal communities
- the opportunities that the ocean provides us with
The Oceans Pact will be presented by the EU Commission at the UN Ocean Conference in June 2025.
What CCB thinks is important to include in the Oceans Pact:
For the Oceans Pact to truly benefit the Baltic Sea we need it to be ambitious and include legally binding targets benefiting the marine environment and biodiversity (e.g. goals on marine protection of 30 % by 2030 or good environmental status).
In particular, for CCB the Oceans Pact should:
- be built on legally binding targets to protect, restore and conserve our Oceans.
- outline coherence between different marine legislation and strategies (e.g. the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Common Fisheries Policy, Marine Action Plan, the Biodiversity Strategy, the Nature Restoration Regulation, the Water Framework Directive, Renewable Energy Directive, Habitats and Birds Directive and the Natura 2000-network, the Marine Spatial Planning Directive and pressures on the marine environment, such as shipping and Carbon Capture and Storage or commercial and recreational fishing).
- address the large pressure of the Baltic Sea marine environment from land and agriculture.
- bring cooperation to decision-making and management and emphasize the full implementation of existing legislation.
- support the implementation of a just transformation towards a ‘regenerative blue economy’ to the benefit of coastal communities and marine ecosystems.
- create a new Ocean Fund that aligns with the existing legislation to replace the current EMFAF. The Ocean Fund would be used to fund 1) ocean conservation & restoration, and 2) a just transition to a regenerative blue economy. In this context, misuse and/or counterproductive use of funds needs to end, which includes the abolishment of harmful subsidies e.g. fuel for fishing vessels. Instead, a CO2 tax should be implemented on fuel for vessels fishing with harmful mobile bottom-contacting gear.
***
EXTRA RESOURCES
CCB signed and published documents with further recommendations:
- The Blue Manifesto, co-signed with over 140 other NGOs. It includes a roadmap with clear targets for the marine environment.
- CCB position papers pushing for actions towards the 30x10 target by 2030: the MPA and the OECMs papers (published in 2024).
Coalition Clean Baltic – CCB is a politically independent network, uniting 27 environmental non-profit organizations, as well as partners and experts from 11 countries surrounding the Baltic Sea. The main goal of CCB is to promote the protection and improvement of the environment and natural resources of the Baltic Sea region by encouraging new and constructive approaches and engaging people to become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. CCB Secretariat is based in Uppsala, Sweden.
European civil society organisations (CSOs) are currently facing an attack coming from certain Members of the European Parliament. Spearheaded by some MEPs from the European People’s Party (EPP) and by far-right groups, this attack resorts to misleading arguments to fabricate a scandal. This portrayal has been amplified through the media, with notable exceptions of articles that attempted to clarify this misleading narrative. European CSOs are crucial to ensure the voices of citizens from different parts of Europe are heard in the EU institutions. Attacks against civil society are unfortunately not new and are exacerbated by this harmful idea. Furthermore, for-profit corporate lobbying is through the roof when compared to non-profit advocacy. In 2024, the 50 corporations with the largest lobbying budgets collectively spent nearly €200 million on lobbying the EU alone (66% more than in 2015). Comparing this to the funding environmental NGOs receive under the LIFE programme - €15.6 million annually of a €700 million yearly budget - truly shows the weakness of this ‘scandal’. This is why over 570 civil society organisations from 40 countries, including all EU Member States, have joined forces to call on those in power to act now and ensure that civil society is adequately funded and enabled to share our crucial perspectives . In this statement, we address: The source of this false narrative; Inaccurate claims made about how CSOs obtain and use funding; Why it’s paramount that CSOs receive sufficient funding; The need for civil dialogue to enable CSOs participation. Democracy is about the right of citizens to be collectively heard for building an inclusive society and a shared European future; properly funded independent CSOs are a crucial tool for that. We call on decision-makers to ensure civil society organisations can thrive and play their role in interacting with policy-makers in order to have a more fully informed decision-making process. Read the full statement here . -END Civil Society Europe (CSE) is the coordination of civil society organisations at EU level. Through its membership, CSE unites EU-level membership-based organisations that reach out to millions of people active in or supported by not-for-profits and civil society organisations across the EU. CSE was created by several civil society organisations as a follow-up to the European Year of Citizens and was established as an international not-for-profit under Belgian law in 2016. Since then, it has become the point of reference for EU institutions on transversal issues concerning civil dialogue and civic space.