Fisheries Council: threat of collapse hangs over fisheries reform

Posted on May, 10 2013

Fisheries ministers will meet in Brussels next Monday and Tuesday to revise their position on the reform of EU fishing rules. The reluctance of some countrie to find common ground with the Parliament on key issues of the reform is threatening to cause the collapse of negotiations on a new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), warned NGOs.

WHAT? EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council
WHEN? Monday 13 & Tuesday 14 May
WHERE? Brussels, Belgium

Fisheries ministers will meet in Brussels next Monday and Tuesday to revise their position on the reform of EU fishing rules. The reluctance of some countries, including France, Spain and Poland, to find common ground with the Parliament on key issues of the reform is threatening to cause the collapse of negotiations on a new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), warned NGOs.

The Parliament’s negotiator, MEP Ulrike Rodust, has signalled that she would be prepared to compromise, but that a significant strengthening of the Council’s position would be needed to broker a deal [1]. On 6 February, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of a comprehensive and ambitious overhaul of the CFP to rebuild fish stocks by 2020, promote low-impact fishing, strengthen fleet management and ban discards [2].

NGOs are calling on the Council to back fish stock recovery by 2020, reduce fishing capacity in accordance with agreed guidelines, support financial penalties for countries that fail to implement the rules and abandon loopholes that weaken the proposed discard ban. A breakdown of negotiations would only satisfy the short-term interest of countries that want to avoid new measures to end overfishing, recover fish stocks and rebuild a sustainable fishing sector, said NGOs.

NGO press invite – Monday photo opportunity:
http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=ea404aee9c118a31232e854a0&id=d16dfc887f&e=

Fisheries Council agenda:
www.eu2013.ie/media/eupresidency/content/documents/AGRIFISH-Agenda--13-14-May.pdf
www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/agricult/137054.pdf

Contacts:

Greenpeace – Mark Breddy: +32 (0)496 156229 - www.greenpeace.eu
WWF – Alexandra Bennett: +32 (0)477 393 400 - www.wwf.eu
Oceana – Angela Pauly: +32 (0)478 03 84 90 - http://oceana.org
OCEAN2012 – Mike Walker: +32 (0)476 622575 - http://ocean2012.eu
BirdLife Europe – Caroline Jacobsson: +32 (0)478 20 62 84 - https://europe.birdlife.org

Notes:
[1] Rodust writes letter to ministers: Parliament is ready to compromise, http://cfp-reformwatch.eu/2013/05/rodust-writes-letter-to-ministers-parliament-is-ready-to-compromise/
[2] Euro MPs back large-scale fishing reform to save stocks, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21352617

Joint NGO action

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