Ladies and Gentlemen,
Dear colleagues,
Let me begin by thanking DG MARE, DG DEFIS and DG ENV for convening this timely session on Marine Knowledge for Ocean Health.
Because if we are serious about Ocean Health today, then we must recognise that it is not just an environmental objective.
It is fundamentally a knowledge challenge. It is about producing the science needed to protect the Ocean’s health.
A challenge of how we observe, how we coordinate observation, and how we transform data into governance capacity.
Over the past years, the European Union has made decisive progress in building the policy architecture required to manage the Ocean as a global commons.
Through the European Ocean Pact, announced at UNOC3 in Nice, the forthcoming Ocean Act, and the development of the EU Ocean Observation Initiative, Europe is now equipping itself with an integrated framework capable of linking ocean science, environmental protection and sustainable economic use.
But legislation alone does not produce knowledge.
And knowledge does not emerge automatically from observation systems.
It is produced through the sustained and coordinated deployment of exploration and observation capacities at sea.
Today, despite world-class infrastructures — including Copernicus Marine Service, EMODnet and Mercator Ocean’s Digital Twin of the Ocean, Europe still faces structural observation gaps:
- in deep-sea ecosystems,
- in biodiversity hotspots such as seamounts and submarine canyons,
- in polar oceans where climate feedbacks are accelerating,
- and in areas beyond national jurisdiction where the implementation of the High Seas Treaty will soon require robust scientific baselines.
In parallel, observation and exploration efforts remain fragmented across sectors, institutions and Member States — in Europe and beyond.
Campaigns are often planned independently.
Data are not always standardised from the outset.
And scientific priorities are not systematically aligned with policy needs.
As a result, we risk entering a paradoxical situation in which our modelling capacities advance faster than the empirical knowledge required to sustain them.
In other words:
- our Digital Twin of the Ocean may become more precise,
- but not necessarily more complete.
If Ocean Health is to be governed effectively, Europe must therefore ensure coherence across the entire marine knowledge value chain:
- from exploration,
- to sustained observation — including through the IOC-led Global Ocean Observing System,
- to data integration,
- and to operational applications.
This is the implementation challenge that now lies ahead of us.
Moving from governance to delivery.
Moving from infrastructure to coordinated deployment.
Moving from data availability to policy-relevant knowledge.
Mission Neptune — launched in Nice at UNOC3 — was conceived precisely to address this implementation gap by connecting exploration, sustained observation and data delivery across European and international partners. In line with the vision expressed by President Ursula von der Leyen for a stronger and more coherent European ocean observation capacity, Mission Neptune now stands ready to contribute as an operational pillar of the forthcoming EU Ocean Observation Initiative — supporting the coordinated deployment of campaigns at sea, the generation of harmonised and policy-relevant datasets, and their integration into European marine knowledge systems such as Copernicus Marine Service, EMODnet and the Digital Twin of the Ocean.
Our collective responsibility is to ensure that the ocean observation systems we are building are informed by mission-driven, interoperable and policy-oriented data collection efforts — capable of supporting climate forecasting, biodiversity protection, marine spatial planning and sustainable blue economy activities alike.
Strengthening coordination across European Member States — their fleets, technologies, digital infrastructures and international partnerships — will therefore be essential:
- To reduce fragmentation,
- To close priority observation gaps,
- And to enhance Europe’s strategic autonomy in ocean knowledge production.
Marine Knowledge is not simply about understanding the Ocean. It is about enabling Ocean Health — through informed, science-based and operational decision-making.
And this requires us, collectively, to ensure that the European Ocean Act and the EU Ocean Observation Initiative are supported by coordinated deployment capacities at sea, capable of translating policy ambition into shared, actionable knowledge.
It is why I believe the Commission’s OceanEye initiative, with 50 million Euros to kickstart it announced yesterday by President Van Der Leyen, will be a game changer.
Europe is stepping up to challenge of science and knowledge about and for the Ocean,
for future generations.
We can be proud.
Now let’s get to work to change the world and protect our Ocean.
Thank you.
