Animal Advocacy & Food Transition (AA-FT) has responded to the European Commission’s consultation on the Vision 2040 for Fisheries and Aquaculture with a clear message: there is no sustainable future for the sector without binding aquatic animal welfare rules.
As aquaculture continues to expand rapidly across the EU, an ever-growing number of aquatic animals are being farmed and killed every year, yet they remain largely excluded from meaningful, enforceable protections. Despite the EU’s legal obligation, this regulatory gap persists, maintaining a system that fails to reflect scientific knowledge or societal expectations.
However, science is clear. The European Food Safety Authority and a wide body of research have established that fish, as well as cephalopods and decapod crustaceans, are sentient and capable of suffering. Yet welfare remains largely absent from the rules governing how these animals are bred, handled and killed.
And this is not an ethical issue only. Intensive aquaculture practices are associated with heavy environmental pressures on ecosystems and a massive reliance on antimicrobials, contributing to the rise of antimicrobial resistance impacting animal and human health alike. As the sector expends, these risks grow accordingly. The Vision 2040 is the occasion to close these gaps through binding, species-specific legislation, ensuring that animal welfare becomes a core component of sustainability.
More sustainable farming practices must be promoted, together with a shift toward lower-impact food systems. The full potential of alternatives must be deployed, such as seaweed cultivation, a low-impact, fast-developing sector that could play a key role in the EU’s future aquatic food system.
The direction is clear, expansion without reform will only amplify existing problems. The Vision 2040 is a critical opportunity to build a system that is productive, science-based and reduces suffering for aquatic animals.