Across Europe, fisheries and coastal communities are facing profound economic, social, environmental and generational challenges. Yet these communities also hold enormous potential for sustainable fisheries, local food systems, innovation, the blue economy and resilient coastal territories.

Fishing is not only an economic activity. It is part of Europe’s food system, its cultural heritage and the social fabric of hundreds of coastal communities. Maintaining a viable European fishing sector is essential to strengthening Europe’s food sovereignty and reducing its dependence on seafood produced outside the European Union.

For years, Community-Led Local Development (CLLD), implemented in fisheries and aquaculture areas through Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs), has allowed local communities to decide how European resources can best respond to their territories.

FLAGs bring together fishers, businesses, public authorities, civil society, research organisations and other local actors. This bottom-up approach turns European policy into concrete local action: supporting fisheries, creating and maintaining jobs, adding value to local seafood, encouraging generational renewal, diversifying coastal economies, protecting maritime heritage and strengthening cooperation between territories.

As the European Union defines its Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028–2034, we call on the European institutions and Member States to ensure a strong and secure future for both the European fishing sector and the coastal communities that depend on it.

We ask the European Union to:

• Maintain a specific and clearly identifiable funding line for fisheries, ensuring that the sector does not lose visibility or compete for its basic support within much larger funding instruments.

• Guarantee a fisheries budget for 2028–2034 at least equivalent to the resources available during the 2021–2027 programming period, recognising the strategic contribution of European fisheries to food sovereignty, employment, coastal economies and the sustainable supply of healthy European seafood.

• Guarantee the continuity of Community-Led Local Development for fisheries and coastal communities after 2027, with adequate and identifiable funding for its implementation across Member States.

• Preserve the bottom-up approach and the meaningful participation of the fisheries sector, local authorities, businesses and civil society in defining local development priorities.

• Recognise FLAGs and their experience as a strategic European network, capable of connecting EU priorities with the real needs and opportunities of fisheries and coastal communities.

Europe cannot strengthen its food sovereignty while allowing its fishing sector and the communities that sustain it to progressively disappear.

European fishers and coastal communities should not simply be beneficiaries of European policies. They should help shape and implement them.

A strong European Union needs a strong fishing sector and strong coastal communities.

We call on the European institutions and Member States to secure adequate and identifiable funding for European fisheries and to guarantee the future of fisheries Community-Led Local Development in the EU framework for 2028–2034.