Europe charges the sailors and lets the owners go

One can be annoyed by this judgment. The more fruitful question is who we are actually accusing. The Shadow Fleet doesn't just consist of rusty tankers flying foreign flags. It is made up of people and they are worse off than ever.

The International Transport Workers' Federation counted a record in 2025: 6,223 seafarers on 410 ships were abandoned by their shipowners, without pay, often without provisions, sometimes for months. That's almost a third more than in the previous year. The wages that no one paid them totaled $25.8 million. More than eight out of ten of these ships sailed under flags of convenience. The union explicitly names the Shadow Fleet as the driver of this development.

We treat these men in two ways. If an anchor falls, they are the perpetrators. If their shipowner disappears, they are a case for the sailors' mission. Both miss who they really are: the only witnesses.

A first officer on such a tanker knows more than any intelligence agency. He knows whether the course came from the shipping company or via a satellite phone. He knows who lowered the anchor and when. He knows which account his wages come from, even after the ship was supposedly sold.

What does he get out of talking? He loses the wages that don't come anyway. He risks never being hired again. Some people can't go home because someone who isn't a relative is waiting for them at home. And Europe offers him, at best, an indictment. And in extreme cases, they fall down a flight of stairs or suffer an exotic accident involving gas or ice on the gangway.

If you want to protect the Baltic Sea, you have to turn that around. Three steps would be possible without a warship having to leave the port.

Firstly, a European protection program for seafarers who testify: right of residence, guaranteed wages for the duration of the procedure, protection for the family. Not for everyone who was on board, but for everyone who talks about ownership, orders and payments.

Secondly, sanctions where the money is made. Not just against ships whose names and flags change like shirts, but against managers, insurers and the agencies that provide the crews.

Thirdly, a legal basis that Helsinki did not have. Anyone who damages critical infrastructure in a state's economic zone must also be able to be prosecuted there. This is a task for Brussels and for diplomacy, not for a district court.

As long as a sailor has more to fear than his owner, no one will talk. And the next anchor will drag another ninety kilometers before anyone asks who dropped it.