Damning new report: EU fish polluted with ‘forever chemicals’, while governments seek to delay action

CCB • September 9, 2025

A new report from the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and its member organisations reveals widespread PFAS contamination in wild fish across Europe, with many samples far exceeding proposed new safety limits. These so-called "forever chemicals" pose a growing threat to public health and aquatic ecosystems - yet EU Member States are pushing to delay action on needed pollution controls until 2039.

The EEB briefing, “Forever chemicals poisoning Europe’s waters and fish: The tip of the PFAS iceberg,” analyses monitoring data from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. It shows that most fish samples tested between 2009 and 2023 contained dangerous levels of PFOS, a persistent PFAS identified as possibly carcinogenic for humans.

Key findings:

Nearly all reported values exceed proposed new EU safety limits;
24% of values in Sweden, 19% in France, and 15-17% in Austria and Spain exceed the limit by 500 times or more;
Some samples from Sweden, Germany and Spain exceeded the proposed standard by over 10,000 times.

This analysis only covers one PFAS chemical – PFOS – while new EU proposals would target a group of 24, suggesting the scale of contamination is likely far greater.

Outdated EU rules are masking the true extent of the crisis.

Member States are currently only required to monitor PFOS, and not the thousands of other harmful PFAS chemicals. A 2022 proposal from the EU Commission to update EU water pollution laws, including regulating a group of PFAS in coastal and freshwater, including biota, has faced several delays, with governments now seeking to push compliance until 2039 – potentially wasting more than a decade of action in the urgent fight against toxic pollution.

The EEB is calling for immediate EU-level action to protect nature and public health from pollution. The next key moment: EU institutions meet on 23 September to decide the future of Europe’s water pollution standards.

Sara Johansson and Athénaïs Georges, EEB said:

"PFAS pollution of EU waters and its wildlife is widespread, yet badly underreported. Coherent obligations on Member States to act to limit further water pollution, e.g. by putting in place stricter discharge permits for industry are urgently needed. We urge the EU institutions to stop delaying action and to adopt updated EU water pollution standards, with a binding obligation for Member States to include measures to limit further pollution from PFAS and other priority pollutants in the next River Basin Management Plans."

CCB contributed to the work of the EEB briefing with the analysis of the Polish data made by Ewa Leś, CCB Eutrophication Working Area Leader, founder of River University, and expert in freshwater security governance, who commented:

"Across Europe, PFOS contamination in rivers, lakes and coastal waters is alarmingly high, with fish in some countries showing levels more than 19,000 times above the new safety standards. While Sweden has taken early, preventive steps, most countries still lag behind in monitoring and transparency. In Poland, structured data from the Chief Inspectorate for Environmental Protection is an important step forward – but citizens still lack full access to information on contaminated sites. Data precision protects public health, and we call on state institutions to strengthen monitoring and reporting."

***

Notes to editors

Currently, fewer than 30% of EU surface waters achieve good chemical status, but this figure is based on a narrow and outdated list of 45 pollutants dating from 2013, including only one PFAS.
EU Member States are not on track to deliver on their obligation to bring Europe’s waters to good status by 2027 at the latest, andthe European Commission recommends Member States to implement additional measures to address chemical pollution.
A wide range ofstakeholders have called on the EU institutions to ensure that Member States are obliged include measure to limit further water pollution of PFAS and other harmful chemicals in the next River Basin Management Plans that are currently being prepared.
Over 450 scientists have called on the EU institutions to reject proposals that undermine the Water Framework Directive and its environmental objectives, and instead urgently adopt up-to-date rules, reflecting the state of the current scientific knowledge to address chemical water pollution.

For further information, contact:
Ben Snelso, Communications Officer for Agriculture and Food, European Environmental Bureau benedict.snelson@eeb.org

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Don't reopen the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Implement it.

By CCB • June 15, 2026

The European Commission's evaluation confirms what environmental NGOs across Europe have long argued: the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)'s challenge is not its design, but its implementation.

Joint NGO recommendations on Baltic Sea fishing opportunities for 2027

By CCB • June 10, 2026

The poor status and decline of many Baltic Sea fish populations have been thoroughly documented over several decades, indicating that the entire ecosystem is in great distress. So far, policy interventions have not reversed, or even halted, the negative trend concerning many of these populations. The European Commission itself recently recognised in its Common Fishery Policy (CFP) evaluation report that progress on stock rebuilding is lacking and the number of stocks “ threatened by collapse due to impaired recruitment has increased during the reporting period ”. Fish populations that once formed the cornerstone of the Baltic Sea fishery, such as the eastern and western Baltic cod and the western Baltic herring, are now doing so poorly that the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is advising zero catch for these stocks. Yet, even with the targeted fishery being closed for some years now, none of these three stocks are showing sufficient signs of recovery. The condition (such as size and weight-at-age) of many flatfish populations, such as plaice, also raises alarm bells. The salmon spawning migration has fallen short of the target level in the past three years5. As a result, even the healthiest salmon stocks are now unlikely to produce enough smolts corresponding to sustainable levels in the coming years. To address the crisis facing Baltic populations and the broader ecosystem, political will and ambition to improve fisheries management, alongside full implementation of the CFP provisions, are needed. The recent INI report on the Baltic Sea Multi-Annual Plan shows that the European Parliament recognises the importance of ecosystem-based fisheries management as well as the need for consideration of environmental legislation when making decisions on fishing opportunities.6 Fisheries managers must now act swiftly and decisively on the commitment the Commission and Baltic Sea Member States made at last year’s October Agrifish Council to rebuild Baltic Sea stocks. This document presents the joint NGO recommendations regarding Baltic Sea fishing opportunities for 2027, prioritising long-term ecosystem health and sustainable fisheries management over short-term economic interests. The recommendations are based on the ICES advice, the objectives and requirements of the CFP8 and the Baltic Multiannual Plan (MAP), specifically to apply the precautionary approach and implement an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management, and the objective of achieving Good Environmental Status (GES) under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). Last year’s overarching joint Briefing Series on TAC-setting, co-signed by almost 30 organisations across the EU and the UK, including environmental NGOs, recreational fishers, and fishing rights owners, remains valid and provides further context, background and detailed explanations on the cross-cutting issues raised in this document. Read the Joint NGO recommendations on Baltic Sea fishing opportunities for 2027 here .