Two EU Member states – Bulgaria and Romania – are involved in Black Sea fisheries. In 2022, the EU Black Sea fleet comprised 1 345 vessels, 1 222 of which were small-scale vessels making up over 90 % of the total EU fleet.
Small-scale coastal fisheries within the EU Black Sea fleet are particularly important from a social point of view. They provide 83 % of the total employment and in most cases are managed as a family business. However, in 2022, they accounted for as little as 30 % of the total landed weight in the region and for 40 % of the total value, while the large-scale fleet accounted for 70 % and 60 % respectively.
A long-term decreasing trend regarding EU Black Sea fishing efforts, landings in weight and average wages, has been observed since 2018.
In 2022, EU Black Sea fishers spent less days at sea, which led to a considerable reduction of landings in weight by 18 % compared with 2021. Black Sea fisheries face direct impacts from the war. Romanian vessels, in particular, used to fish close to Ukrainian waters, and are now advised to stay clear of the conflict zone. Fisheries have also been affected by high energy prices, making the sector even less profitable.
In 2022, the weight of landings generated by the Black Sea EU fleet amounted to some 8 722 tonnes, split between Bulgaria (5 546 tonnes) and Romania (3 176 tonnes).
The main landed species (by weight) in 2022 were sea snails (4 618 tonnes), followed by European sprat (1 623 tonnes), Mediterranean mussel (671 tonnes) and bluefish (545 tonnes).
However, when EU and non-EU fleets are considered together, a different picture of the Black Sea fishing fleet emerges. Within the GFCM area, the Black Sea fleet amounts to almost 11 000 vessels, eight times more than the EU fleet alone (based on data collected from Bulgaria, Georgia Romania, Türkiye and Ukraine ). With about 3 %, the EU fleet in the Black Sea accounted for only a very small part of landings for the 2020-2021 period: by far the largest share of landings by weight in the Black Sea was provided by Türkiye (61.9 %), followed by Georgia (19.9 %), Russia (13.1 %), Ukraine (2.3 %), Bulgaria (1.9 %) and Romania (0.9 %).
Accordingly, a different picture emerges for the main landed species in the Black Sea: between 2020 and 2021, the most landed species was the European anchovy (65%), followed by European sprat (13 %) and rapa whelk (2.9 %).
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