One year after the European Union adopted the Ocean Pact on June 5, 2025, the historic High Seas Treaty has entered into force, reshaping how humanity protects waters beyond any nation's control. The Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), which became law on January 17, 2026, represents a watershed moment in ocean governance—a rare display of multilateral consensus on a challenge that belongs to no single country and no single leader.
The EU's leadership on this front matters profoundly. As climate change acidifies the oceans and industrial fishing depletes fish stocks at unprecedented rates, the high seas—covering nearly half the planet—had remained largely unprotected. The BBNJ creates the legal framework to establish marine protected areas, conduct environmental impact assessments, and share genetic resources from the ocean in equitable ways. For an institution often criticized for moving slowly, the EU and its Member States accelerated this diplomatic process with remarkable focus.
But international agreements are only as good as their implementation, and here the EU is laying real groundwork. President von der Leyen's pledge of €1 billion for ocean conservation, science, and sustainable fishing—announced at the UN Ocean Summit—is already flowing into concrete programs. The European Commission has established a high-level, stakeholder-led Ocean Board and is testing the Ocean Pact dashboard, a monitoring tool that will become fully operational by year's end. This dashboard promises transparent tracking of the EU's progress across six strategic priorities, a rare commitment to accountability in environmental policy.
Beyond diplomacy, the EU is making practical moves to fight illegal fishing and reshape how Europeans use the ocean. The OceanEye initiative, recently adopted, sets strikingly ambitious targets: by 2035, the EU aims to become the world's leading provider of ocean intelligence, capture 35 percent of the market for ocean observation technologies, and supply 35 percent of the global ocean observing system. These aren't feel-good aspirations—they're concrete market targets that mobilize investment and innovation.
On the economy side, the evaluation of the Common Fisheries Policy provided the first comprehensive analysis in years of whether EU fishing rules actually work. Alongside this came two new strategies: the EU Ports Strategy and the Industrial Maritime Strategy, both designed to make European maritime industries more competitive and sustainable. On June 10, the Commission will adopt dedicated strategies for the EU's island and coastal communities, recognizing that these places—which have depended on healthy oceans for millennia—need tailored support to thrive in a changing world.
What distinguishes this moment is the scale of coordination. The Ocean Pact brings together ocean protection, scientific research, sustainable business, and community resilience into a single framework rather than leaving them as separate silos. It acknowledges a simple truth: you cannot protect what you do not understand, and you cannot sustain an ocean economy on depleted fish stocks and rising seas. As island communities and fishing villages face mounting pressures, the EU is betting that treating ocean health as both a scientific imperative and an economic opportunity can unlock long-term resilience for the regions that depend on these waters most.