Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2670 actions· ✨ 89 recent

The European Commission approved a Czech national framework state aid scheme, worth an estimated €279.1 million, on 24 June 2025. The scheme is structured as an ex-ante contingent programme: it pre-authorises Czechia to compensate companies of all sizes active in the fishery and aquaculture sector for lost income and damages once a natural disaster or adverse climatic event affecting the sector is officially recognised. The scheme runs through 31 December 2031. Global Trade Alert logged the measure as a financial-grant intervention.

Regulation (EU) 2024/3015 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 establishes the first EU-wide binding prohibition on placing, making available on, or exporting from the EU single market any products made with forced labour at any stage of production, manufacture, harvest, extraction or processing. The regulation is cross-sector and horizontal — no sectoral exemptions apply. It entered into force on 13 December 2024, with a phased implementation schedule; procedural and institutional framework provisions apply from 13 December 2024, while full operational application begins on 14 December 2027. The regulation empowers national competent authorities (and the Commission for state-imposed forced-labour cases involving third countries) to investigate, require withdrawal, and order destruction of non-compliant goods, and establishes a Commission-maintained publicly accessible database of high-risk geographic areas, sectors, and products.

The European Commission formally notified the Republic of Senegal on 27 May 2024 of the possibility of being identified as a non-cooperating third country in fighting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, under Article 32 of Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008. The decision (C/2024/3277) cites specific shortcomings in Senegal's monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of Senegalese-flagged vessels operating outside national waters, inadequate oversight of foreign vessels using Dakar port as a transhipment hub, and traceability failures enabling illegal fish exports to the EU. A formal dialogue period now opens during which Senegal must remediate identified deficiencies; failure to do so would lead to red-card escalation and a full EU import prohibition on Senegalese seafood.

Regulation (EU) 2023/2842, published in the Official Journal on 20 December 2023, is the first comprehensive recast of the EU fisheries control framework since Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009, and amends the IUU Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008 alongside five sectoral regulations (1967/2006, 2016/1139, 2017/2403, 2019/473). Effective in phases from 10 January 2026, it mandates the CATCH electronic catch-certification IT system for ALL imports of wild-capture marine fishery products into the EU single market, replacing legacy paper catch certificates. It also introduces Remote Electronic Monitoring (REM) with CCTV on high-risk EU vessels ≥18 m, full electronic reporting for all vessels by 2028, and extended Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) coverage down to vessels ≥12 m. The regulation tightens the carding regime (red/yellow cards for non-cooperating flag states under the amended IUU Regulation) and requires digital traceability end-to-end through the supply chain, raising compliance cost and market-access barriers for all non-EU seafood exporters.

Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/97 of 5 January 2023 formally identified Cameroon as a non-cooperating third country under Article 31 of Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008 (IUU Regulation), issuing the EU's first "red card" to a West African flag state. The Commission found that Cameroon systematically registered fishing vessels — including vessels with documented prior IUU histories — without adequate monitoring or flag-state control over their activities outside Cameroonian territorial waters. Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/405, adopted 20 February 2023, confirmed the identification and triggered the operative trade consequences: a total prohibition on imports into the EU single market of wild-capture fishery products caught by Cameroon-flagged vessels, a bar on EU vessels chartering or operating under the Cameroonian flag, and a prohibition on EU operators purchasing from or transhipping with Cameroon-flagged vessels in any waters.