SEA Europe, the European association of the shipbuilding and marine equipment industry, has circulated to its members a communication on the coordinated lobbying action on the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), following the Public Affairs working group meeting of 3 November 2026. The initiative seeks the immediate inclusion of the European maritime manufacturing industry in the scope of the Act, without waiting for its revision.
SEA Europe calls on the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to recognise maritime manufacturing as a strategic sector for the industrial production acceleration areas (Annex I) and to bring it within the scope of the Union-origin requirements applicable to public procurement and public support schemes. The association stresses that, while the EU remains committed to open, rules-based trade, access to the European public procurement market and to public support schemes should be assessed sector by sector, from the perspective of reciprocity – both legal and practical.
Reciprocity and origin criteria
According to SEA Europe, the inclusion of maritime manufacturing in the IAA’s Union-origin requirements should rest on a dual approach: combining a minimum share of EU content with a list of strategic technologies for the key markets of the European maritime manufacturing industry, identified as such both today and in the future. Non-price criteria should also be included for the procurement of specialised vessels intended for strategic projects in the maritime, renewable energy and subsea sectors.
The association warns that free trade agreements should not provide blanket exemptions from “European preference” requirements where trading partners maintain extensive and specific state-aid regimes and significant barriers to market access. Granting automatic access to public procurement procedures and EU public support merely through the existence of a free trade agreement would create a permanent gap, whether or not genuine reciprocity exists in the sector concerned. South Korea is cited as an example: despite its free trade agreement with the EU, its government continues to provide substantial support to national shipyards. Allowing shipbuilders from third countries to compete for contracts funded by European taxpayers – while their own domestic markets remain protected through state financing and industrial support – would undermine the very rationale of “European preference”. Access to publicly funded markets should therefore be based on real and demonstrable reciprocity, assessed sector by sector, rather than granted automatically through general diplomatic commitments.
Geopolitical and defence risks
SEA Europe highlights the broader geopolitical and defence risks if the EU does not act now. Civilian and military shipbuilding rely on the same fundamental industrial ecosystem: steel processing facilities, dry docks, maritime engineering expertise, a skilled workforce and supply chains for specialised equipment. A sovereign European naval defence capability cannot exist without a viable commercial maritime manufacturing base. If Europe’s civilian shipyards disappear, the costs of maintaining the industrial infrastructure, skills and technological capabilities required by European naval forces will rise dramatically, while essential defence maintenance and repair capacities will gradually degrade.
The United States is cited as a warning: by allowing its commercial shipbuilding industry to shrink over several decades, it has lost much of the industrial capacity, skilled workforce and supply-chain ecosystem needed to sustain large-scale ship construction. Rebuilding these capabilities today is proving extremely costly, and the erosion of the commercial industrial base also drives up the cost of building and maintaining military vessels. SEA Europe urges Europe to avoid repeating this mistake and to include its maritime manufacturing ecosystem in the IAA, so as to preserve and strengthen these capabilities now, avoiding the huge costs of rebuilding them from scratch precisely when they would be most needed.
The economic security of shipowners
There is also a dimension directly linked to the economic security of European shipowners. They depend on an accessible network of European shipyards and suppliers for routine maintenance, dry-dock operations, emergency repairs and mandatory upgrades. The erosion of this network would increase dependence on Asian shipyards, expose the European shipping sector to the risk of delays and weaken its resilience during periods of geopolitical tension or supply-chain disruption. The loss of European shipbuilding capacity would therefore not mean merely the loss of an industrial sector: it would mean ceding control over the critical maritime infrastructure, capabilities and supply chains on which Europe’s economy, trade and security depend.
Source: SEA Europe – Public Affairs Working Group, communication on the coordination arrangements for lobbying activities on the Industrial Accelerator Act, 3 November 2026.