Europe’s Challenge to Protect its Seas and Waters
Europe’s seas and freshwater face mounting challenges. The EU’s Marine Strategy Directive aims to protect marine biodiversity but progress remains uneven.
The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is central to Europe’s efforts to safeguard marine ecosystems and the biodiversity communities and industries depend on. Complementing existing EU laws, it addresses environmental pressures not covered elsewhere and requires Member States to assess the condition of their marine waters, define good environmental status, and set measurable targets, all within recurring six-year cycles. The European Commission then reviews these national reports and offers guidance for improvement.
How countries work together under the Directive
Because of its scope, the MSFD relies heavily on coordinated action across the EU. To support this, Member States and the Commission have established a Common Implementation Strategy. This includes providing strategic guidance, overseeing progress, having working groups on good environmental status, knowledge sharing, and having technical groups focusing on marine litter, underwater noise, seabed integrity, and data.
The Directive also guarantees public access to environmental information and involvement in decision-making, reinforcing transparency, and accountability.
Mixed progress on the latest reporting cycle
Member States were required to update their assessments and targets by 15 October 2024. However, the evaluation report published in March 2025 shows that reporting has been inconsistent across countries, largely due to limited political commitment, the absence of legally binding targets, and insufficient resources.
These reports play a critical role in tracking the health of Europe’s seas and shaping future policy measures.
WWF’s 2022–2024 assessments further highlight that most Member States are not adequately integrating key MSFD requirements into their maritime spatial plans, nor are they aligning implementation timelines to ensure that findings from MSFD monitoring meaningfully inform the planning process.
The interlinked policies around water
Despite broad scientific consensus on the effects of climate change on marine biodiversity and the ocean’s role as a carbon sink, the MSFD still falls short in addressing climate-related pressures on marine ecosystems.
In parallel to the MSFD process, the European Commission is launching Structured Water Dialogues with all Member States as part of the EU Water Resilience Strategy. These dialogues are a response to alarming trends: only 39.5% of EU surface waters currently achieve good ecological status, and just 26.8% meet good chemical status. While progress has been made, it remains too slow to reach Europe’s environmental objectives.
These dialogues are a response to alarming trends: only 39.5% of EU surface waters currently achieve good ecological status, and just 26.8% meet good chemical status.
Between 2025 and 2027, each Member State will participate in technical discussions with the Commission, followed by high-level political meetings chaired by Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, and national ministers responsible for water management. The goal is to support countries in implementing key recommendations under the Water Framework Directive, the Floods Directive and the MSFD.
Turning policy into action
Together, these developments show a clear need for stronger commitment and coordination across Europe’s water and marine policies. The MSFD, alongside the wider Water Resilience agenda, provides the framework, but its success now depends on Member States’ commitment. Ensuring healthy seas and resilient waters will require political will, adequate resources, and full alignment between the policies that shape Europe’s blue and freshwater environments.