Commissioner Kadis, in a written answer on 29 June 2026, signalled that the European Commission may propose new rules to close gaps in origin labelling for fishery products and highlighted that the EU has, for the first time, proposed sanctions on Russian fisheries imports. The answer responds to a priority question from Sofie Eriksson (S&D) submitted on 13 May 2026, who raised concerns that EU seafood imports may hide Russian links, undermining sanctions enforcement and consumer transparency.
Kadis stated that the Commission's evaluation of the Common Fisheries Policy regulation identified gaps in mandatory labelling: processed products are not covered, and origin information can be hard to interpret. He said the Commission will analyse these findings before potentially proposing regulatory measures to improve transparency. He also noted that the EU CATCH digital certification scheme now requires the flag State of the catching vessel to validate catch certificates for every import, making this information digitally available to the Commission.
On sanctions, Kadis confirmed that the EU has adopted far-reaching trade restrictions on Russia, and that for the first time, the High Representative and the Commission proposed in the 21st sanctions package import measures on fisheries products not previously targeted. However, any extension of import measures to fisheries requires unanimous adoption by the Council. The answer thus points to a policy direction of tightening both consumer information and enforcement, but leaves concrete legislative proposals and final sanctions decisions to future steps.