Damanaki seeks to protect fish stocks

Commission to unveil plans for fisheries reform; transferable fishing rights would be extended.

Maria Damanaki, the European Commissioner for fisheries, will next week unveil plans to end the overfishing of EU fish stocks and reduce over-capacity in the fishing sector. 

Damanaki’s plans for the first reform of the Common Fisheries Policy since 2002 are designed to bring fishing activity more closely into line with scientific advice on the level of stocks. Each year, scientists recommend catch limits intended to allow stock to recover to self-sustaining levels, and each year this advice is ignored by fisheries ministers seeking to maintain their national industries.

Damanaki wants ministers to honour a commitment at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg that by 2015 fishing activity should not exceed maximum sustainable yield – the level at which a stock replaces itself.

She told a meeting of fisheries ministers on 28 June that although there had been some improvements, “too many stocks are still overfished and too many stocks are being fished in ignorance of their biological state”.

Around 62% of stocks are estimated to be overfished.

Overcapacity

Transferable fishing rights are expected to feature prominently in her plans. The UK, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal are among the countries that already allow quota-holders to sell their fishing rights, and the commissioner is expected to propose the introduction of such systems by all member states.

That, she believes, would contribute significantly to reducing overcapacity in the fishing industry, as quotas would be sold to active fishing crews. The Commission estimates that 30%-40% of fishing fleets are not making a profit.

Fact File

Reaction

Pat The Cope Gallagher, an Irish Liberal MEP and former fisheries minister, said that while action to tackle discards was needed “it will have to be done in a realistic fashion”.

He said there should be greater emphasis on compliance and enforcement across the EU. He stressed the importance of regional management of fisheries as a way to create a “simpler, cheaper Common Fisheries Policy”.

Struan Stevenson, a UK Conservative MEP and vice-chairman of the fisheries committee, said that the Common Fisheries Policy had been “an abject failure”. “Far from maintaining stocks and sustaining jobs, it has led to a situation where around 80% of European stocks are in a critical state of over-exploitation,” he said.

“The reform of the CFP will provide the opportunity to devolve responsibility down to the stakeholders and to end the top-down micromanagement from Brussels that has bedevilled the sector for decades,” Stevenson said.

He said new fisheries management systems should be put in place that “don’t force fishermen to throw dead fish overboard to satisfy the EU’s CFP”. Instead, fishermen should be compelled to land everything and every vessel should be fitted with CCTV to monitor compliance, he said.

Alain Cadec, a French centre-right MEP who is a vice-chairman of the fisheries committee, said: “We all want to respond to the challenges facing the fisheries sector but I think an outright ban on discards and introducing individual transferable quotas are the wrong solutions. These two proposals Mrs Damanaki foresees will put in danger fishing activity in Europe and are not a satisfactory response to the needs of protecting resources.”

He added: “On discards, we need solutions which are adapted to the different causes of discards like the extension of multiannual plans or the improvement of the selectivity of fishing gear.

“As for fleet management, I think that individual transferable quotes will lead to speculation and the concentration of fishing rights in the hand of a few large enterprises. What we want is to maintain the fishing sector, regardless of whether it is industrial or small-scale. The reform must be based on economic efficiency but we must not forget the social and regional planning aspects. Fishing is not just an economic activity. It’s also about the livelihoods of men and women across the EU.”

Transferable rights do not, however, enjoy universal support. Guy Vernaeve, secretary-general of Europêche, which represents the European fishing industry, said that there was a “divergence of views” among his members. Environmental groups see this as an inadequate approach to sustainability.

According to Saskia Richards of Greenpeace, it ignores the problems of destructive gear or fishing methods. “You have to combine it with measures to ensure that the fleet is more sustainable,” she says.

Damanaki also wants to phase in a ban on discards, fish which is thrown overboard because crews do not have sufficient quota to land their catches legitimately. The level of discards is estimated to be 30%-80% for certain stocks. The fishing industry accepts that there is a problem, but argues that simply trying to ban discards is the wrong approach.

Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, claims “huge strides” by his members in reducing discards, and says there is scope for further refinement. The Commission should “pull back from its totally impracticable proposal to ban discards”, he says.

Damanaki will publish her proposals – which are also likely to include long-term management plans for fishing areas – and present them to the European Parliament’s fisheries committee on 13 July. Fisheries ministers will discuss them on 19 July. The new rules will have to be agreed with MEPs, as fisheries policy falls under the codecision regime under the Lisbon treaty.

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