Brussels: The European Commission tabled an EMFAF amendment on 21 September 2026 that rewrites parts of the rulebook for the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, the bloc’s main source of money for fishers and fish farmers. The proposal aims to make funding easier to reach, to steer more support towards cleaner vessels and young entrants, and to bring EU law into line with the World Trade Organization deal on harmful fisheries subsidies.
Fisheries Commissioner Costas Kadis framed the package as a cut in red tape that also protects marine resources. His department, DG MARE, built the text on the fund’s mid-term evaluation, a call for evidence and consultations with member states and advisory councils, which found that halfway through the 2021-2027 period some rules were hard to apply and some funding lines too rigid to unlock investment.
The most tangible change for coastal communities is a new temporary cessation scheme. It would compensate operators who lose at least 40% of the fishing opportunities allocated to them, a design that speaks directly to fleets facing steep quota reductions in stocks under scientific pressure. The Commission would also scrap the budget ceiling on temporary cessation altogether, giving national managing authorities room to respond when a bad quota year hits.
A second new scheme targets small-scale coastal fishing, the segment that makes up most of the EU fleet by vessel count but often struggles to navigate complex grant procedures. The Commission wants the money to keep viable small boats at sea and to help their owners diversify income. Younger fishers would receive higher aid intensity, and the text removes obstacles to supporting the transfer of business ownership, a recurring complaint in ports where skippers are retiring without successors.
On the energy transition, the EMFAF amendment loosens the rules on engine replacement and modernisation, adds legal definitions for “energy transition” and “pilot projects”, and opens the door to supporting research, pilots and port infrastructure that cut emissions. Member states would also gain more flexibility in how they programme fleet measures, as the ceiling for fleet measures and permanent cessation rises from 15% to 30% of each national allocation.
The environmental chapter encourages spending on national strategies for marine protected areas and fishing restricted areas, on managing those zones and on co-management schemes that bring fishers into decisions. That fits the direction set by the European Ocean Pact, although the practical effect will depend on how many capitals choose to reprogramme money towards it.
The WTO element is less visible but legally significant. The EU ratified the WTO Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies in June 2023, and the Commission now proposes to make any operator or vessel engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing ineligible for EMFAF support. The same exclusion would apply to fishing on the high seas outside the competence of a regional fisheries management organisation or arrangement.
Because the fund runs under shared management, the Commission sets the framework while national authorities pick projects and pay beneficiaries. That means the promised simplification will only reach fishers if ministries also keep their own procedures proportionate, a point the Commission makes explicitly in its announcement of the EMFAF simplification proposal.
The proposal amending Regulation (EU) 2021/1139 now goes to the European Parliament and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. With the current programming period ending in 2027, co-legislators will need to move quickly for the EMFAF amendment to change what reaches harbours before the next long-term budget takes over.
