Thematic file 13/19
SEA, COASTAL AND FISHERY
This text is part of the thematic dossiers of the 2nd edition of Levrig by Yes Breizh.
Making Brittany a responsible maritime power
Levrig 2027
Trajectory 2027-2032
NB: «For the sake of fluidity and concision, In this text, the masculine is used to encompass all genders.».
The essentials
The sea is both a living environment, a source of food, a space for work, transport, energy, research and sovereignty. Brittany must pursue a unique maritime policy across its five departments, reconciling the prosperity of coastal communities, the renewal of trades and the restoration of ecosystems.
Our goal — Moving from a juxtaposition of ports and sectors to a maritime system Bretagne-5: decisions based on data, added value retained in Brittany, transitions that are properly funded and results published annually.
| Documented landmark | Situation | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Caught fish | Approximately 1,000 vessels and 3,800 fishermen in administrative Brittany | Preserving the diversity of fleets and organizing the renewal |
| FEAMPA1 | More than €14 million programmed and more than €8 million paid. For the 2021-2027 period, its budget is €82.4 million. | Measuring the economic, social and environmental effects of aid |
| Port governance | Three convergence plaques: Brittany Nord, Cornouaille, Brittany Sud | Building a network without sterile infraregional competition |
| Maritime Brest | 28,000 jobs, 1,800 researchers and 24 research units according to the document submitted | Structuring an international ocean pole and spreading its benefits |
| Transitions | Decarbonization, selectivity, biodiversity and generational renewal | Financing a progressive and socially sustainable transformation |
The main figures relate to the administrative region. The desire for a ‘Zero 2027’ situation must encompass the Loire-Atlantique region and distinguish between fishing, aquaculture, processing, ports, shipbuilding, research, defense, and nautical activities.
1. A Brittany-5 maritime strategy
- Creating a Maritime Conference2 Bretaña-5 brings together communities, professionals, scientists, employees, associations and elected representatives.
- Adopt a single strategic document linking fisheries, ports, the coastline, energy, transport, biodiversity, research and training.
- Organizing the ports according to the principle of «one port for Brittany, several docks», with specialization, mutualization and coordinated investments.
- Publishing consolidated maritime accounting: budgets, jobs, flows, added value, emissions and environmental status.
Governance that addresses controversies
Yes Breizh rightly noted that CESER reminds us that sustainable fishing is not just a clash between professionals and environmentalists. The decision must be based on discernment, the sharing of knowledge, the exchange of opposing viewpoints, the consistency of policies, and coordinated investment.
2. Fishing: renew without scarring, as Yes Breizh proposes
- Launch a plan for the renewal of ships that prioritizes safety, sobriety, selectivity, versatility, and reparability.
- Creating a financial engineering desk3 (with the Breton banks) for small businesses, installations and transmissions.
- Conditioning aid to verifiable trajectories, without imposing a single technology before maturity.
- Secure revenue during experiments, stopages or conversions when the collective interest is demonstrated.
- Develop the representation of young people, women, crews and small-scale fishing in the institutions.
Balance line for Yes Breizh — Refusing both statism and general prohibitions without a solution. The impacts vary depending on the vehicles, zones, species, and seasons; the measures must be proportionate, territorialized, and revisable.
3. Resources, biodiversity and knowledge, what Yes Breizh offers
- Creating a Maritime Observatory Bretagne-54 in open data format, compatible with national and European scientific systems.
- Increase the number of fisheries-science programs and the deployment of observers or sensors.
- Defining plans per façade and fishery: stocks, habitats, accidental catches, selectivity, and climate adaptation.
- Evaluate the effects of super-harvesters and bottom trawling by habitat and intensity; experiment with alternative zones, periods and gear before generalizing.
- Include recreational fishing, terrestrial pollution, climate change and urbanization in the analysis of pressures.
4. Ports, creation and local added value, what Yes Breizh offers
- Networking the clusters: common information systems, coordinated marketing and mutualized logistics.
- Modernize cold, water, energy, waste treatment, safety, and railway connection or rail connection when appropriate.
- Increasing the transformation, milling, conservation and valorization of by-products in Brittany.
- Develop voluntary traceability based on origin, method, freshness and fair remuneration.
- Reserve a place for local products in collective catering, in compliance with the public procurement law.
5. Responsible aquaculture and algae cultivation
For Yes Breizh, aquaculture can strengthen food sovereignty and diversify coastal areas if it respects the capacity of the environments, animal health, water quality, and local acceptance.
- Simplify procedures through a coordinated single point of contact without lowering environmental requirements.
- Support conchiculture, algae culture, hatcheries, and innovations that limit inputs, mortality, and conflicts over use.
- Publish the health and environmental data of the assisted sites.
- Create a marine-feed accelerator involving laboratories, ports, companies and training institutions.
6. Littoral, climate and sharing of space, what Yes Breizh offers
- Establishing resilience contracts by life basin: erosion, submersion, water, habitat, tourism, and primary activities.
- Apply a clear hierarchy: avoid new exposure, adapt, relocate when necessary, and compensate equitably.
- Guarantee public access to the coastline and protect the ecological functions of wetlands, dunes and estuaries.
- Organizing co-operation between fishing and EMS from the planning stage, with accessible data and an independent mechanism for resolving disputes.
7. Marine energy and territorial benefit
For Yes Breizh, Brittany must be able to:
- to make Brest and Lorient industrial bases for floating wind turbines, maintenance and circular dismantling;
- condition the territorial support to local employment, training, subcontracting plans and the protection of biodiversity;
- create a coastal fund funded by a share of the benefits from the projects, allocated to the municipalities and communities concerned according to public rules;
- evaluate separately electricity production, jobs that are actually localized, effects on usage patterns and the ecological state.
8. Training, research and maritime culture
Similarly, for Yes Breizh, Brittany must be able to:
- deploy a Bretagne-5 training card and anticipate the needs ten years ahead;
- create maritime scholarships and retraining programs for sailors, technicians and displaced workers;
- to relaunch the project for an international ocean research center around Brest, with the participation of Ifremer, the Shom, the UBO and the schools;
- generalize marine education and marine classes, with priority given to audiences that are remote from them;
- to link science, defense, maritime security and civil innovations, with rules of sovereignty and ethics.
9. Our reflections from across the Channel
- Consider fishing and aquaculture to be the economic backbone of many coastal communities.
- Specifically support small fishing and processing companies.
- Combining the prosperity of the sector with improved protection of the marine environment.
- Maintain an innovation center for sustainable aquaculture and improve the approval procedures.
- To directly benefit communities from renewable energy projects.
- Provide services, training and support adapted to rural, coastal and island areas.
10. Twenty commitments
- Adopting a Brittany-5 maritime strategy.
- Establish a Maritime Conference and a user mediator.
- Creating the maritime observatory in open data format.
- Networking ports and creches.
- Establish a fleet renewal plan.
- Create the installation and transmission gateway.
- Funding selectivity, security and decarbonization.
- Develop fishing-scientific programs.
- Develop plans per fishery and habitat.
- Increasing local transformation.
- Deploying voluntary traceability requires commitment.
- Support responsible aquaculture and algae cultivation.
- Create the sea-to-table accelerator.
- Adopting coastal resilience contracts.
- Organizing the co-operation between fishing and the EMS.
- Create the territorial maritime profit fund.
- Structuring the industrial sector of the EMS.
- Deploy the maritime training map.
- Making Brest an international oceanic hub.
- Publish results, discrepancies, and corrections each year.
Conditions of implementation
No transformation is generalized without a budget, a roadmap, revenue and evaluation. No objective is imposed without a budget, a timeline, support, and accessible technical solution. No transfer takes place without resources. In the event of failure, the system is corrected rather than maintained to meet a deadline. A code green, orange, red It will indicate the trajectory, but will never replace the figures and their explanation. A temporary increase in an indicator may correspond to a transition or to a better census: each evolution will be interpreted before a decision is made.
11. Calendar 2027-2032
| Year | Decisions and deliverables | Public platform |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 — Measuring | Zero state Brittany-5; maritime conference; audit of ports and fleets; map of training facilities | Data, competences, budgets and controversies published |
| 2028 — Organizing | Maritime strategy; observatory; port contracts; fleet desk; first coastal contracts | Established governance and calls for open projects |
| 2029 — Invest | Modernization projects; demonstrator vessels; aquaculture accelerator; coastal fund | Projects in the five Départements and jobs followed |
| 2030 — Correct | Mid-term evaluation; fisheries-habitat plans; aid adjustment and co-existence zones | Disagreements discussed and corrective measures voted on |
| 2031 — Mainstream | Logistics network; local transformation; training; EMR industrial chain | Verifiable economic and ecological results |
| 2032 — Evaluate | Independent assessment; consultation of communities; strategy 2033-2038 | Final report, revised trajectories and associated budget |
12. Monitoring dashboard
| Indicator | Reference/target to be set in 2027 | Frequency | Pilot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maritime employment | Staff and FTE by discipline, gender, age and department | Annually | Observatory |
| Active fleet | Ships by age, size, profession, port and consumption | Annually | Fishing / ports |
| Renewal | Facilities, transmissions, terminations and vacant positions | Annually | Guichet |
| Security | Accidents, near-accidents and modernized ships | Annually | Prevention |
| Broadcasts | Litres and tCO2e per kg landed and per segment | Annually | Observatory |
| Selectivity | Unwanted captures and improved equipment | Campaign | Science / discipline |
| State of stocks | Stocks monitored and in good condition | Annually | Scientists |
| Habitats | Surface and condition of the sensitive habitats monitored | Every two years | Biodiversity |
| Disembarkations | Volume, value, cash flow and seasonality | Monthly | Created |
| Local value | Part transformed and marketed in Brittany-5 | Annually | Sector |
| Income | Median income, value sharing and sustainability | Annually | Observatory |
| Ports built | Costs, revenues, deadlines, mutualization and energy | Quarterly | Port network |
| Aquaculture | Production, jobs, mortality and water quality | Annually | Sector / water |
| Training | Entrance, graduates, integration and reconversions | Return to school | Training |
| Research | Projects, funding, patents and transfers | Annually | Oceanal Pole |
| Coastal resilience | Population, assets and exposed activities; delivered shares | Annually | Departments (and countries) |
| EMR locations | MW, jobs, local purchases and environmental incidents | Semiannual | Energy |
| Territorial benefit | Reimbursed prescriptions and projects funded | Annually | Coastal Fund |
| Dialogue | Participation, agreements, disputes and mediation deadlines | Annually | Conference |
| Consolidated budget | Planned, paid for and result per share Bretagne-5 | Budget | Assembly |
13. Risks and precautions
| Risk | Safeguard |
|---|---|
| Politics dictated by a single interest group | Pluralistic governance, common data and motivated decisions |
| Punitive ecology or a delayed transition | Dated trajectories, social support and revision clauses |
| Large projects without local impact | Contractual commitments, territorial funds and publication of purchases |
| Competition between ports | Coordinated specializations and investments valued at the Brittany-5 level |
| Helpers captured by the biggest | Small business window, caps and transparency of beneficiaries |
| Misleading indicators | Published methods, long series of studies and conflicting expertise |
| The forgotten Loire-Atlantique | Zero state and explicitly established governance in five departments |
| Insufficient skills | Immediate measures distinguished from levers requiring legislation or devolution |
Conclusion
For Yes Breizh, Brittany will not become a maritime power through a slogan, but by connecting its ports, its fishermen, its scientists, its businesses, its communities and its inhabitants. Success will be measured by four simultaneous results: more resilient ecosystems, more attractive jobs, more value preserved in Brittany and especially in our coastal communities capable of managing their future.
Mobilized resources and precautions
- Region Bretagne, Mission 5 — Economic, agricultural and maritime development, initial budget 2026.
- CESER from Brittany, Inshore fishing in Brittany: controversies and issues, Synthesis, 2025.
- Document submitted on «Mer»: elements related to the Brest maritime hub.
- SNP, Government Programme / Holyrood Election Manifesto 2026.
The available regional data often cover four Départements: the integration of the Loire-Atlantique region therefore constitutes a deliverable for the 2028 edition of Levrig. Proposals relating to the State, the European Union, or future devolution are distinguished from competences that can be mobilized immediately.
Notes and clarifications
1. The European Fund for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture is managed by the Regional Council. This fund supports the energy transition of the fleet, the preservation of marine resources, sustainable aquaculture, and the development of Brittany’s coastal areas. ↩
2. Any creation of an observatory or agency etc. will have to be linked to the disappearance of at least one other equivalent public entity with the full reinstatement of the staff. Adjustments may be made subsequently.
↩
3. See the following note. ↩
4. Reminder: Any creation of an observatory or agency etc. must be linked to the disappearance of at least one other equivalent public entity with the full reinstatement of the staff. Adjustments may be made subsequently. ↩
The thematic dossiers of Levrig 2027 by Yes Breizh
• 1. Statute, institutions, devolution and Constitution
• 2. Public finances, budget and fiscal autonomy
• 2 bis. Budgetary analysis France – Brittany 5
• 3. The public service in Brittany
• 4. Health in Brittany
• 5. Disability in Brittany
• 6. Education, training and higher education
• 7. Culture, languages and media
• 8. Breton identity, transmission and cohesion
• 9. Housing in Brittany
• 10. Employment, businesses and economic development
• 11. Economy, trade and mobility
• 12. Agriculture and food
• 13. Sea, coast and fishing
• 14. Energy, climate and the ecological transition
• 15. Digitalization and sovereignty
• 16. Security, justice and defense
• 17. Europe and internationally
• 18. Breton Diaspora and international outreach
