The World Oceans Day, set in 2008 by the UN General Assembly, is celebrated on 8 June and its aim is to raise awareness of the importance of the oceans and the need to protect the and use their resources in a sustainable manner.

Portugal, a country whose identity is intrinsically inked to sea, synonymous in its various facets with a sea-faring nation, of sailors, celebrates this date with confidence. The Government is fully committed to the responsibilities and challenges that are imperative due to the urgency around the need to protect Oceans.

The country is a renowned leader in international ocean governance, and, in that sense, it has been developed endeavours to increase global cooperation. This position was reinforced by hosting the Second UN Ocean Conference in 2022 in Lisbon, co-hosted with Kenya. 

This was an opportunity to state the importance of the sea on an international level, reasserting the urgency around its protection and the development of a sustainable blue economy, as well as it being a cornerstone of multilateral dialogue, perhaps the most significant one since the war in Ukraine.

In the field of international cooperation on this matter, the efforts undertaken are significant. On a bilateral level, through a growing interaction with several partners, particularly within the Atlantic space and the Portuguese-speaking realm. On a multilateral level, we note the annual presidency of the Atlantic Strategy Group (made up of representatives of the four EU Member States that border with the Atlantic (France, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain) underway, as well as representatives of the European Commission, the Committee of the Regionals, the Economic and Social Committee, and representatives of the coastal regions, cities, and others. We also note the active participation in the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which brings together 17 coastal countries and of which Portugal is a founding member, and the preparation of the bi-annual co-presidency to start in 2024 with Mauritania and Tunisia, the WestMED Initiative, which aims at exploring the added value and the definition of maritime strategies based on the experience and work developed under the Western Mediterranean, the so-called 5+5 Dialogue, which involves 10 countries: five EU Member States (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Malta) and five North African countries (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia).

Still on the international scope, Portugal is actively committed to the efforts around a new treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). Forty years on from the UN Convention on the Law o the Sea, the world will celebrate on 4 March the agreement known as the High Seas Treaty.

Protecting marine biodiversity is one of the Government’s commitments, for which there is already much work undertaken, with guiding criteria and well-defined strategic goals in order to ensure the effective protection of 30% of our marine area by 2030. 

At the same time, the country is endeavouring for all of its fisheries’ stocks to be within the sustainable biological limits in order to ensure that 100% under Portuguese sovereignty or jurisdiction is assessed to be in good environmental state.

The national investment in being carbon neural by 2050 is also related to the sea. Towards this goal, the Government has set the ambition to achieve a 10-gigawatt offshore wind power installed capacity to be attributed in stages by 2030 through bids. 

The model being developed will be based on knowledge of the marine world, compatible uses and activities and on innovation and technological development. The first bid is to be launched at the end of this year.

A sea-based decarbonisation cannot overlook maritime transportation, a fundamental sector of the blue economy, to which the Government is paying particular attention, as it is focused on promoting green shipping. For this, Portugal included a 50-million-euro investment on supporting green shipping projects in its Recovery and Resilience Facility’s reprogramming.

Ocean protection and sustainable use are carried out through a sustainable adaptation of the traditional maritime activities, yet also through the introduction of innovative activities, which leads us to see the sea as a territory where the different uses and activities must be made compatible, by identifying positive synergies with the blue bioeconomy sector and the new sustainable blue economy business models. 

The blue bioeconomy applies to sectors such as health, pharmaceutics, industrial and energy processes. And Portugal, making the most of its maritime nation status intends to become a pioneer in innovation and science applied to a blue biotechnology on an industrial scale, becoming a hub of excellence for innovation and blue biotechnology in Europe, which is why promoting the re-industrialisation of the traditional sectors through biotechnology was included in the Programme of Prime Minister António Costa’s third Government, as well as the creation of an international Blue Bioeconomy Centre. This Centre will be the outcome of a collaboration between Galp, the Blue Ocean Foundation, Matosinhos Municipality, and the Northern Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR-N). We expect that the project will be presented by the end of September. 

There are various opportunities represented in several conscious and sustainable ways of using Oceans to the benefit of all. Faced with this programme, we have the challenge of building an infrastructure for a sustainable blue economy and, as such, Portugal is developing an infrastructure network for the Blue Economy, a project funded by the RRF to a total amount of 87 million euros. 

In addition to envisaging investment in infrastructure in various hubs throughout the country (Leixões, Aveiro, Peniche, Lisbon, Oeiras, Algarve) and a Blue School, this also includes driving a governance model. Investing in this project aims to double the number of start-ups in the blue economy, as well as the number of projects backed by public funds, a commitment taken on by the Government. 

To fully implement the sustainable blue economy the country desires, we must swiftly identify means of financing and guarantee maritime security, the security of those who operate at sea, the resources, and the infrastructures and platforms that are installed at sea or travel on it. 

Considering the relevance of financing to develop economic growth opportunities in this sector, the Government is preparing the second edition of the Sustainable Blue Economy Investment Forum (SBEIF), which is a commitment undertaken by Portugal to develop strong economic growth together with a healthy ocean that creates blue jobs and contributes to a rich and equitable society.

This will be an international event dedicated to financing the sustainable blue economy, the aim of which is to bring financiers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and companies from the sea area together.

All the opportunities identified bring with them complex challenges and threats, worsened by the current uncertain geopolitical context, abruptly changed by the conflict triggered by Russian’s invasion of Ukraine. 

These are reasons that heighten the importance of the security issues and which led the Government to set up a committee to draft a National Maritime Security Strategy by 2030 in order to better identify national requirements and responsibilities on this matter, where the security environment shifts rapidly and setting priorities and allocating resources are a constant challenge.