Europäischer Rechnungshof - European Court of Auditors
EU seas: polluting ships can still slip through the net
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EU seas: polluting ships can still slip through the net
- The EU is aiming for zero water pollution by 2030
- The EU struggles to track pollution at sea and trace its source
- Checks are inadequate and penalties are rare and too lenient
A report published today by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) sounds the alarm: ships and vessels continue to pollute EU maritime waters. Even though EU legislation is improving and is sometimes even tougher than international rules, implementation by the 22 coastal EU member states is far from satisfactory. Actions to prevent, tackle, track and penalise various types of ship-source pollution are not up to the task, the auditors warn.
EU legislation incorporates relevant international rules – sometimes with even stricter requirements – in areas such as oil pollution, shipwrecks, and sulphur emissions. However, the EU auditors also warn of gaps that the EU still needs to fill, particularly as regards pollution risks. For instance, it is still possible for shipowners to circumvent their recycling obligations by adopting a non-EU flag before dismantling their ships. The data speak for themselves: while 1 in every 7 ships in the world was flying the EU flag in 2022, the figure for the end-of-life fleet was 50% lower. Similarly, EU rules on containers lost at sea are far from watertight. First, there is no guarantee that all losses are declared; and second, very few containers are recovered.
“Pollution at sea caused by ships remains a major problem, and despite a number of improvements in recent years, EU action is not really able to steer us out of troubled waters”, said Nikolaos Milionis, the ECA Member responsible for the audit. “In fact, with over three-quarters of European seas estimated to have a pollution problem, the zero-pollution ambition to protect people’s health, biodiversity and fish stocks is still not within sight.”
The auditors also note that EU countries underuse tools – such as a network of standby oil-spill response vessels and drone detection – with which the EU provided them to help tackle ship-source pollution. A striking example is the European Satellite Oil Monitoring Service (CleanSeaNet) for surveillance and early detection of possible pollution incidents. In 2022-2023, it identified a total of 7 731 possible spills in EU seas, mostly in Spain (1462), Greece (1367) and Italy (1188). However, the EU auditors found that member states acted on fewer than half of these alerts and confirmed pollution in only 7 % of cases, one reason for which was the time that elapsed between the satellite image being taken and the pollution actually being checked.
The auditors also found that member state authorities do not carry out enough preventive inspections of ships, and penalties for polluters remain low. Those responsible for illegally discharging polluting substances into the sea rarely face effective or dissuasive penalties, and prosecutions are rare. Similarly, few member states report breaches relating to the retrieval of abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear.
Overall, the auditors conclude that neither the European Commission nor the member states fully track the EU money used to combat seawater pollution. They do not have an overview of the results actually achieved, or of how they could be replicated on a larger scale. At the same time, the audit reveals that the EU has difficulties monitoring ship-source pollution. The actual amount of oil spills, contaminants and marine litter from ships remains largely unknown, as does the identity of polluters.
Background information
Ships such as cargo vessels, cruise ships, passenger ferries, fishing vessels, and recreational craft are noteworthy sources of seawater pollution. They are responsible for oil spills, discharges of chemicals, incorrect waste disposal, gas emissions, loss of containers, and discarded fishing gear. The EU and its member states – 22 of which have coastlines – strive to address ship-source pollution in several ways, with a highly ambitious zero-pollution objective for 2030.
The report assessed EU action to tackle ship-source pollution during the period from January 2014 to September 2024. The audit included visits to France and Germany covering two marine sub-regions (the Greater North Sea and the Baltic Sea) that are the second busiest shipping lane in the world.
Special report 06/2025, “EU actions tackling sea pollution by ships – Not yet out of troubled waters”, is available on the ECA website.
Contact:
ECA press office: press@eca.europa.eu