August 9, 2026

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August 9, 2026

Newsletter

The European Post

Policy • Diplomacy • Strategic Insight

LATEST
New EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before AntalyaNew EU Gas Market Rules Take Effect With Consumer SafeguardsDeforestation Regulation Holds Its December Deadline Despite CutsDigital Omnibus Delays Europe’s High-Risk AI Deadline to 2027Europe’s Schools Confront a Widening Basic Skills GapRule of Law Report Finds Progress but Trust Still LagsIRIS2 Gains 66 Satellites as Brussels Signs the Rollout DealNature Restoration Plans Come Due as Member States Race a DeadlineECB Rates Hold at 2.25 Percent as Frankfurt Waits on the DataEU Budget Talks Turn to Cohesion as Ireland Takes OverWildfire Response Stretches Europe’s Emergency Fleet ThinCan Europe’s Quantum Plan Match Its Big Ambitions?Armenia Edges West as Moscow’s Grip Slips AwayEurope Inherits the World’s Aid Bill It Cannot Fully PayAir Passenger Rights Get Their First Overhaul in Two DecadesErasmus Opens a 5 Billion Euro Round for Skills and MobilityCeuta Crisis Pushes the EU Toward Faster Migrant ReturnsBulky Parcels Face a Packaging Crackdown From August 12Can Europe Build Its Drone Wall Before 2030 Arrives?Indonesia’s Trade Deal With Europe Nears Its Final SignatureEurope Leans on Beijing to Keep Climate Talks Alive Before Antalya

Two Fishing Nations Face EU Action Over Weak Controls

Anton Chekhov
Policy Tracker, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries

The European Commission has escalated a long-running fight over fisheries control, opening infringement procedures against Italy and Portugal in its July enforcement package. Both governments received letters of formal notice for failing to meet obligations under the Fisheries Control Regulation, the rulebook that lets Brussels verify whether catches at sea match the figures landed on shore.

Italy drew the sharper rebuke. Officials in the capital said a large share of the actions listed in Italy’s 2019 Control Action Plan still sit unfinished, spanning data validation, electronic reporting, engine power checks and the monitoring of sales notes. For the first time, the Commission is pursuing a member state for ignoring commitments written directly into such a plan. Investigators also complained that Rome has repeatedly withheld information, breaching the principle of sincere cooperation that binds national authorities to the EU executive.

Portugal’s case reaches back even further. The Control Regulation required Lisbon to build an automated system for cross-checking and validating fisheries data, backed by an electronic database, by December 2013. More than a decade later, that system remains unfinished. Without it, inspectors cannot reliably spot the gaps and errors that let over-quota fishing slip through unnoticed.

The stakes stretch well beyond paperwork. Reliable catch data underpins the quotas that ministers negotiate each December, and it anchors the scientific advice that decides how hard fleets can push stocks in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the North Sea. When one country’s numbers cannot be trusted, the whole common pond suffers, and fishers who play by the rules lose out to those who do not.

Brussels frames the move as part of a wider push to modernise enforcement after the 2023 overhaul of the control rules, which brought in mandatory vessel tracking and tighter margins on weighing catches. The Commission has published its reasoning through its July infringements package, and the control regulation sets out the obligations both states now stand accused of neglecting.

Italy and Portugal have two months to answer and to fix the shortcomings. If their replies fall short, the Commission can issue a reasoned opinion, the next rung on a ladder that ends at the Court of Justice and, potentially, financial penalties. Neither government wants to reach that point during a season when coastal communities already feel squeezed by fuel costs and shrinking quotas.

The timing also lands as the Commission consults on simplifying the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, the pot that helps pay for the very monitoring tools both countries have struggled to deploy. Officials insist enforcement and support go together: money flows more easily to fleets that can prove their catches are honest. For Rome and Lisbon, the message from the July package is blunt. The grace period for half-built control systems has run out.

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