“Laws that exist only on paper achieve nothing.” This is not a slogan. It reflects the reality described by small-scale fishers and points to a wide gap between European Union commitments and delivery on the water. More than a decade after the last reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the EU is once again debating whether to rewrite this policy, even though the CFP’s framework is fit for purpose and delivers sustainable fisheries — when properly applied. What continues to fail is its implementation. The clearest example is the legal commitment to end overfishing by 2020, a deadline still unmet. > If Europe delays action until after another lengthy reform, it risks losing > the next generation of fishers and hollowing out coastal economies. Nowhere is this gap more visible than in the Mediterranean, and particularly in Cyprus and Greece, where stocks are further weakened by the accelerating effects of the climate crisis and the spread of invasive species. The Mediterranean remains the most overfished sea in the world, and small-scale fishers feel these consequences directly. Yet, Cypriot fishers are not asking for weaker rules or a new policy. They are asking for effective enforcement of existing legislation, and support from national authorities. Without these, the future of fisheries as a profession is at stake. If Europe delays action until after another lengthy reform, it risks losing the next generation of fishers and hollowing out coastal economies. Photo by A.S.S. The experience of Cypriot and Greek fishers mirrors a broader European issue. Before reopening the CFP, Europe should take stock of the real gap, which lies not in the law itself, but in its uneven implementation and enforcement. Calls for reform are driven by familiar pressures: environmental safeguards are increasingly framed as obstacles to economic viability and fleet renewal. Reform is presented as a way to modernize vessels and cut red tape. But this framing overlooks lessons from the past. Europe has been here before. Excess capacity and weak controls pushed fish stocks to the brink of collapse, forcing painful corrections that cost public money and livelihoods. For small-scale fishers in the Mediterranean, these impacts are not theoretical. They are experienced daily, through declining catches, rising costs and increasing uncertainty. The Common Fisheries Policy delivers when implemented Evidence shows that where the CFP has been implemented, it delivers. According to European Commission assessments, the share of stocks subject to overfishing in the North-East Atlantic fell from around 40 percent in 2013 to just over 22 percent by 2025. In the Mediterranean, the figure dropped from 70 percent to 51 percent over the same period. These improvements are closely linked to the application of science-based catch limits, effort restrictions and capacity controls under the CFP. > Europe has been here before. Excess capacity and weak controls pushed fish > stocks to the brink of collapse, forcing painful corrections that cost public > money and livelihoods. Economic and social data tell the same story. EU fishing fleets have become more efficient and more profitable over the past decade. Vessels now generate higher average incomes, with wages per full-time fisher rising by more than a quarter since 2013. In its 2023 policy communication, the Commission concluded that the CFP remains an adequate legal framework, with the real gap lying in its application and enforcement. Those involved in the 2013 reform understand why this matters. The revised policy marked a clear shift away from overcapacity and short-term decision-making toward a science-based approach. The European Commission’s own assessments show that this approach delivered results where it was applied. Parts of the EU fleet became more profitable, labor productivity improved and several fish stocks recovered. The CFP remains the EU’s strongest tool for reversing decline at sea. Implementation results in progress; reform leads to instability and uncertainty Strengthening the CPF’s implementation would deliver tangible benefits, including greater stability for fishers and coastal communities, avoiding years of legislative uncertainty, and allowing faster progress toward sustainability objectives. Firm and consistent implementation can enhance economic resilience while restoring ocean health, without the delays and risks that come with reopening the legislation. Given the time and resources required, another round of institutional reform is neither efficient nor necessary. Priority should instead be given to effectively delivering the agreed CFP commitments. Photo by A.S.S. Cypriot Presidency of the Council: a moment for delivery This debate unfolds as Cyprus assumes the EU Council Presidency, at a moment when choices made in Brussels carry immediate consequences at sea. Holding the Presidency brings responsibility as well as opportunity. It offers a chance to help frame the discussion toward making existing rules work in practice, while addressing current implementation challenges. This is where the credibility of the CFP will be tested. > Sustainability and livelihoods move together, or not at all. Reopening the CFP now may send the wrong signal. It may suggest that missed deadlines carry no consequence and that agreed-upon rules are optional. For fishers, it would prolong uncertainty at a time when stability is already fragile. For Europe, it would undermine trust in its ability to deliver. The EU was not conceived to generate endless processes or delay action through repeated legislative cycles. Its purpose is to deliver common solutions to shared problems, and to support people and communities where national action falls short. The last reform of the CFP was built on a simple principle: healthy fish stocks are the foundation of viable fisheries. Sustainability and livelihoods move together, or not at all. This principle is already reflected in Europe’s agreed framework. The task now is to act on it. Fisheries are a clear test of that promise. The law is already in place. The tools already exist. What Europe needs now is the political resolve to deliver on the commitments it has already made. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is OCEANA * The ultimate controlling entity is OCEANA More information here.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning book “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. You may have heard that some unsavory ships have been navigating our waters, smuggling drugs and other goods, damaging underwater infrastructure and sometimes just lurking, perhaps conducting surveillance. Many of these ships turn up in Irish waters, which are home to multiple undersea cables. But while Ireland has a tiny navy to deal with these unwanted visitors, it does have another formidable resource that helps keep its waters safe: its fishermen. And for the sake of national security, let’s hope this shrinking tribe manages to renew its ranks. In January 2022, Ireland was facing a terrible dilemma: The Russian Navy had just announced it was going to hold an exercise in Irish waters. Conducting wargames in the exclusive economic zones of other countries is legal, but guests ordinarily ask for permission — and Russia definitely wasn’t a welcome visitor. Like the rest of Europe, Ireland was gripped with fear that Russia was about to invade Ukraine and perhaps other countries. Dublin politely asked the Russian Navy to refrain from holding its exercises, but to no avail. The wargames were going to take place. But then the Irish government received assistance from an unexpected source. The country’s fishermen declared they wouldn’t allow the exercise to happen: “This is the livelihoods of fishermen and fishing families all around the coastline here,” announced Patrick Murphy, chief executive of the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation, on RTE radio. “It’s our waters. Can you imagine if the Russians were applying to go onto the mainland of Ireland to go launching rockets, how far would they get with that?” The fishermen, Murphy explained, would take turns fishing around the clock. The maneuver made it impossible for the Russians to perform their exercises, and Moscow ended up cancelling the wargames. The creativity of these gutsy fishermen made global news, but away from the headlines, they and their colleagues in other countries have long been aiding national security. In the early hours of Oct. 28, 1981, two Swedish fishermen on their daily round off the coast of Karlskrona noticed something unusual. They decided to alert the authorities, and the navy dispatched a vessel. What the fishermen had spotted turned out to be the U137 — a Soviet nuclear submarine that had run aground. The incident demonstrated several things: First, fishermen know their countries’ waters like almost no one else and notice when something is out of the ordinary. Second, the navy — or the coast guard — can’t be everywhere all the time. And third, fishermen can perform a vital service to national security by alerting authorities when something doesn’t look right. The grounded U137 wasn’t a one-off. In fact, fishermen keep a vigilant eye on their surroundings on behalf of their compatriots all the time. Stefano Guidi/Getty Image Ireland’s large number of undersea cables is the result of the country’s strategic location at the westernmost end of the north Atlantic and its need for top-notch connectivity to service its high-tech economy. Indeed, the republic has marketed its connectivity — and low corporate taxes — so successfully that a host of U.S. tech firms and other corporate giants have set up European hubs there. But its waters cover a vast 880,00 square kilometers. That’s a challenge for the Irish Naval Service, which has a small fleet of eight patrol vessels, and such a shortage of sailors that it can’t even crew those few vessels. Despite placing a few orders for maritime equipment recently, it’s in no position to detect all the suspicious activity taking place in Ireland’s waters. That’s where the fishermen come in. Because they spend so much time at sea — some 200 days in the average year — they are adept at spotting drug boats or, say, potential saboteurs. When the authorities detect something unusual, perhaps via radar, they often ask fishermen what they’ve seen. “People ring us up and say: ‘Did you notice ABC?’,” Murphy told me. “Then we send them pictures. A lot of fellas send in pictures and tracking. WhatsApp is very good for this.” This monitoring, Murphy said, isn’t just a phenomenal alert system. “It’s a deterrent.” We’ll never know how many unwelcome visitors that vigilance has deterred. But in keeping their eyes open, fishermen perform an indispensable service to Irish security — and it costs the government nothing. As unwanted visitors keep turning up in our waters, such contributions to national security are becoming increasingly essential all around Europe. There’s just one problem: The fishing profession is losing manpower. In Ireland, the fishing fleet has shrunk from some 400 vessels to just over 100 in the past two decades due to economics, foreign competition, fishing quotas and maritime regulations. From a security perspective, this continued decline of Irish — and European — fishermen is dangerous. They’re the best soldiers we never knew we had.

OPTICS SHORTAGE OF SAND: EUROPE’S IMPACT ON CAPE VERDE’S TURTLE CRISIS Plastic pollution, mass tourism, climate change and poaching all put pressure on a fragile ecosystem, revealing how local challenges often stem from global problems. Text and photos by LUIGI AVANTAGGIATO in Boa Vista, Cape Verde Above, Emilio Garcia Landim, a 29-year-old ranger of Fundação Tartaruga, spots a sea turtle on the beach of Lacacão on Cape Verde’s Boa Vista island. Next, tracks left by a turtle looking for a nesting site along the plastic-infested beach of Porto Ferreira. Plastic reaches the island carried by ocean currents, disturbing the nesting of reptiles that die of dehydration and disorientation looking for a clean place to lay their eggs. Bottom, the carcass of a turtle that died of dehydration, along Varandinha beach. Every summer, thousands of sea turtles climb the beaches of Boa Vista, Cape Verde, for a millennia-old ritual: nesting. Today, however, this process is threatened by several factors, putting one of the world’s largest Caretta caretta turtle colonies at risk. Poaching, pollution, mass tourism and climate change are all putting pressure on this fragile ecosystem, revealing how local challenges often stem from global problems — with a heavy shadow cast by Europe. The most significant threat to these turtles is plastic pollution. And here, the fisheries agreements Cape Verde has with the EU — allowing European industrial fleets, especially Spanish and Portuguese, to operate in its waters — have a significant impact on marine life. Nesting beaches are suffocated by tons of waste carried by currents, mostly originating from fishing activities and dumping along the European and African coasts. The accumulation not only chemically contaminates nests but also creates physical barriers that prevent female turtles from finding safe spots to lay their eggs. A numbered stick marks a turtle nest mapped by volunteers from the NGO Cabo Verde Natura 2000 along the plastic-infested beach of Porto Ferreira. The Cape Verde archipelago is the third-largest turtle reserve in the world, after Oman and Florida. The island of Boa Vista hosts two-thirds of Cape Verde’s turtles. “It’s like looking for a home in a minefield,” explained Franziska Haas, a German biologist and volunteer with Fundação Tartaruga, one of the most active local NGOs. “Often, we have to help them find a safe spot. Some get lost, wander for hours until morning and risk dying of dehydration.” Fundação Tartaruga currently monitors over 30 kilometers of coastline with teams of rangers and international volunteers, many with scientific training. Their work is crucial for identifying nests, protecting eggs, combating poaching and documenting the growing damage caused by pollution. There’s plenty more coastline to cover, of course, but their resources are limited. First, seven-year-old conservation dog Karetta and her handler João José Mendes de Oliveira, a 21 year-old ranger, patrol Santa Monica beach. Next, the remains of a turtle killed for its meat along Varandinha beach. Above, view of the Morro de Areia nature reserve. It covers an area of 25.85 square kilometers, with a 300-meter-wide marine protection zone. Below, ranger coordinator Adilson Monteiro, 28, shows a photograph of a turtle killed by a poacher on Varandinha beach. “Fishermen kill turtles while they are sleeping, during egg-laying. They pierce their necks with a fishing hook called incroque and cut off the rest of their bodies with a knife,” Monteiro said.  Next, a temporary tent used by volunteers of the NGO Bios Cape Verde for turtle monitoring along the beach of Varandinha. Then, there’s overtourism. In the last two decades, Cape Verde has become an increasingly popular tourist destination for Europeans. The islands of Sal and Boa Vista, in particular, have seen massive investment from European real estate groups, resulting in the construction of hotels, resorts and residential complexes along turtle-nesting beaches. But it’s not just the land that’s dangerous, threats to these turtles loom in the water as well. Industrial trawl nets accidentally catch tens of thousands of turtles every year, both in the archipelago and during their migration in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to feed. And while European regulations mandate the use of exclusion devices, which allow turtles to escape nets, they’re only mandatory for certain fleets and areas, and enforcement is often inconsistent. Top, Cleidir Lopes, a 22-year-old tour guide, washes his horse Morena at Chaves beach. Cleidir is a member of Guardiões do Mar (guardians of the sea), a community of people from Boa Vista who report the presence of animals in difficulty in the water, such as turtles and cetaceans. Next, artificial nests of the association Cabo Verde Natura 2000 Cape Verde along the beach of Porto Ferreira. Below, Helmer Davy, a 22-year-old ranger, sleeps in his tent at the Fundação Tartaruga Lacacão camp in Curral Velho after covering his night shift.  There’s also he impact of climate change to contend with. In many cases, excessive heat causes embryo mortality. Meanwhile, the sex of turtle embryos depends on the temperature of the sand where they lay their eggs, with higher temperatures favoring females. And this growing imbalance could jeopardize long-term reproduction. In the face of all these threats, the volunteers’ night work has become essential; their observations are silent, meticulous, and almost ritualistic. Their teams consist of three or four volunteers and an environmental ranger, and their patrols are organized to the rhythm of a metronome, keeping the time dedicated to each female turtle to a minimum. Some of the volunteers help dig deeper holes, some inject microchips for the census, some note the nest’s GPS coordinates, and some come back to evaluate the turtles’ age, size, health and the presence of wounds. Volunteers Franziska Haas, a 22-year-old German biologist; Simone Ambrosini, a 21-year-old Swiss biologist; Nele Ruhnau, a 23-year-old German medical engineer; and ranger Emilio Garcia Landim inject a so-called Passive Integrated Transponder into the front fin of a turtle on Lacacão beach. They are also seen measuring the length of a shell to assess the age and health of a turtle, help dig holes and move eggs laid in a shallow hole to a hatchery. During breeding season, which lasts from June to October, each female can nest up to three times, digging a flask-shaped hole on the beach, each containing about 100 eggs. The laying lasts on average two hours. The eggs are incubated by the high temperatures of the sand for about 50 days. Still, despite all this work, poaching persists on the island too. Despite commitment from Cape Verde’s government, which criminalized the consumption of turtle meat and eggs in 2018, females are caught at night, killed while laying eggs and sold on the black market where meat can fetch up to €20 per kilo. “Turtles are hunted illegally for their meat and eggs, which are sold by word of mouth,” confirmed Fundação Tartaruga’s Executive Director Euclides Resende. But “in 2024, we documented just six killings on the beaches we monitor, compared to thousands just a few years ago.” The group’s surveillance work is effective, having adopted an innovative approach that uses conservation dogs and thermal technology in 2019. “This allows us to expand the surveillance range and collect evidence for potential legal action,” explained project coordinator Adilson Monteiro. Top, moonlight illuminates an hatchery along the beach of Lacacão. Many of the nesting beaches do not have the most favorable conditions for nest incubation such as the low slope of the beach profile, plastic and the presence of tourists. As a compensatory measure many of the nests are relocated to a controlled incubation area, which ensures the hatching of the young turtles and increases their chances of reaching the sea successfully. Next, a team of rangers and a conservation dog from the same NGO patrol an area at Santa Monica beach. The targeted selection of nesting beaches by a trained team of rangers equipped with night vision devices and conservation dogs has led to a massive reduction in poaching on the coasts of Boa Vista since its introduction in 2018. Below, Denis Quintino, a 31-year-old fisherman, returns to the port of Sal Rei after a night of fishing. But it’s exceedingly difficult to eradicate an activity so deeply rooted in the culture of a place: The meat and eggs of Caretta caretta have always been consumed on the islands. And in inland villages like João Galego, Cabedo do Tarafes and Fundo das Figueira, “Ba pa bela” (catching a turtle) is a true rite of passage. “For my family, hunting turtles was normal. My grandfather did it, my father did it, and I learned from my older brother. Every family in João Galego has always eaten turtles; it’s part of our tradition,” said tour guide Zenildo F. It is this difficult coexistence of tradition and environmental conservation, along with the need for further pollution and fisheries regulations, that makes the survival of Cape Verde’s sea turtles a truly global test case.