Abstract
‘Thank you. This is Miranda Marluppi from Euro Diretta. At the start of the decade the Commission used its “EU Beach Clean-Up” initiative to sell us idyllic pictures of the Med- iterranean Sea, but today — in 2027 — the “Med is Dead”. What is the EU doing to save the Mediterranean Sea?’. There was no satis- factory answer to this question. Not least be- cause the assumption that EU policies such as the European Green Deal would help reduce overfishing, pollution and emissions in the Mediterranean had been wrong. Instead, from 2022 waves of protest by fishermen and coastal communities broke out across the Mediterranean. Port blockades and the dumping of dead fish on the streets of Brussels’ European district became the norm.
‘We are doing everything we can to manage the marine environment in the Mediterranean Sea. We are deeply concerned about the ongoing environmental effects of the 2026 oil spill, the persistent skirmishes between fishing fleets and the higher levels of irregular
migration to Europe. However, we are on track to manage the marine economy, work with non-EU partners and mitigate the effects of climate change’, proclaimed the Commission spokesperson. These words were of little comfort to the almost 2 million people that had been employed in the blue economy in the EU’s Mediterranean Member States (1). Combined with other climate-related stresses, the ‘dead fish’ phenomenon had also taken its toll on tourism in the Mediterranean.
There was strong disagreement between policymakers as to what was negatively affecting fish stocks. ‘I am certain it is linked to the marine oil spill that occurred after the Bouri offshore rig disaster near Libya’, said one official during a crisis meeting. ‘I know that pollution and over-fishing have long been problems in the Mediterranean, but how can we ignore the fact that over 128 million litres of oil were released into the sea over a 70-day period after the Bouri disaster? An oil spill the size of Poland? It’s our very own Deep Horizon!’, he continued. ‘Exactly’, agreed another official, ‘had it not been for the Bouri oil disaster our Green Deal would have changed…
Chaillot Paper, EUISS, 2022, No. 172
Daniel Fiott 