Summary

The EU’s ambition is zero water pollution by 2030 (SDG 14). In view of this, European Court of Auditors (ECA) assessed EU actions to address ship-source seawater pollution. The audit methodology also included on-site visits of sea shore regions of Germany and France. Overall, EU rules improved, but implementation weaknesses existed and data was insufficient to measure results. While the European Maritime Safety Agency developed useful tools, member states did not use them to their full potential. They often failed to meet their mandatory targets for ship inspections. Auditors also revealed that there was no overview of the results achieved by EU-funded projects or of the options for scaling up. ECA recommendations aim to make pollution alert tools more effective, strengthen the monitoring of ship inspection targets, improve the impact of EU funding. Auditors also recommended better measuring seawater pollution.