Press statement: EU maritime strategies send positive signals but need strengthening

Brussels, 4 March 2026: Last week the European Commission launched the EU Industrial Maritime Strategy and EU Ports Strategy, that mark an important step for the bloc’s pioneering sustainable shipping companies. However, truly setting the sector on course for a green future demands clarity on access to finance and regulatory certainty.

The Strategies include positive signs, including:

• Recognising technologies such as fuel cells, electric propulsion and e-fuels, as well as port electrification, as strategic part of the future maritime landscape.

• Indicating that the upcoming Energy Union Package should promote the availability of sustainable fuels in ports.

• Recognition of the important role of the EU ETS in driving the transition (with a share of maritime allowances earmarked for the sector though the Innovation Fund until 2030) and of directing ETS revenues back into the sector.

However, the strategies also are limited by some key flaws:

• They largely address alternative fuels indiscriminately. Europe must target the solutions that best serve European strategic priorities: climate, energy security, competitiveness.

• At a time when EU budget negotiations are underway, neither strategy provides new funding nor certainty on the Commission’s suggestions for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

Most significantly, however, it is worrying that the Strategies suggest revising the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act in a paragraph on administrative burden and simplification, and revising FuelEU Maritime and the MRV to address “competitiveness challenges with third countries”. Reopening legislation should aim to raise ambition and strengthen market signals, not weaken both.

For the maritime strategies to translate into real-world change, the SASHA Coalition recommends that the European Commission:

1. Unlocks new sources of funding and mobilises private investment. While the MFF is under negotiation, the 2026 revision of the EU ETS offers a major opportunity to expand the scope of maritime ETS and earmark revenues to support the sector’s transition.

2. Targets the most sustainable and economically promising solutions- those derived from renewable electricity and renewable hydrogen - and support the deployment of their infrastructure, including through the AFIR review this year.

3. Protects and strengthens the regulatory backbone of maritime decarbonisation. Strong and predictable rules give innovators and investors the certainty needed to scale clean technologies and turn “Made in Europe” ambitions into real industrial leadership. Reopening key legislation outside scheduled reviews, or with proposals that may weaken ambition, would risk undermining positive signs just when the sector needs them most.