Commissioner Roswall holds roundtable on revision of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive

Talks focused on better protecting the health of our seas and oceans, improving implementation, and simplifying the EU’s main framework for achieving healthy seas.

Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy Commissioner Jessika Roswall (pictured) hosted a stakeholder roundtable on Wednesday (30 Sep) to discuss revising the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), the EU’s main instrument for protecting the marine environment.  

The discussion comes at a time of close political attention to Europe’s water resilience. Healthy seas and oceans are an integral part of Europe’s wider water system, with pressures from pollution, climate change and human activities increasingly requiring a more coherent approach from source to sea.

The roundtable brought together stakeholders, focusing on how to better protect the health of our seas and ocean, improve implementation and simplify the EU’s main framework for achieving healthy seas. 

It also provided an opportunity for stakeholders to engage with the Commissioner on how the revised framework can become more effective, operational and coherent with broader EU marine and ocean policies, while making it simpler to implement.

It follows an extensive consultation through the Have Your Say portal. 

Main policy orientations under consideration 

The main ideas behind revising the MSFD are twofold. First, the legal framework needs to be stronger so the EU’s seas and ocean achieve good environmental status, meaning seas must be healthy, clean and productive. In practice, this means human activities related to the sea must be sustainable.    

Another focus is improved efficiency through stronger links with other EU laws, such as the Water Framework Directive, Nature Restoration Regulation and the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive — the latter being the basis for a new Ocean Act.   

Simplification is also a core aim. The revision will reduce Member States' reporting obligations and improve environmental monitoring and data management, making implementation of the revised law more efficient. 

Background 

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive is the EU’s main instrument for protecting the marine environment through an ecosystem-based approach. It aims to achieve good environmental status in all EU marine waters. 

However, the 2025 directive evaluation found that this main objective was not achieved by 2020. It also identified several shortcomings, including implementation and enforcement difficulties, uneven regional cooperation, limited coherence with wider maritime policies, and administrative burden linked to reporting and data management. 

The revision aims to address these issues by strengthening marine ecosystem protection, improving progress towards good environmental status, and simplifying implementation while reducing administrative burden. This work is being done in close coordination with the development of the Ocean Act to support healthy, clean and resilient seas for present and future generations.

More information

Marine environment protection: Revision of EU rules | Have Your Say

Marine environment | European Commission

Share this article: