Posted on May, 22 2006
Brussels, Belgium - EU Fisheries Ministers, with the support of the European Commission, are poised to spend hundreds of millions of euros of taxpayers’ money on new engines for Europe’s already over-sized fishing fleet. Should this happen, the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will be demolished, warns WWF, the global conservation organisation.
At the EU Fisheries Council meeting in Luxembourg on 22 May, Ministers will agree the European Fisheries Fund and determine how nearly four billion euros of fishing subsidies should be spent over the next seven years. The compromise proposal to beef up Europe’s fishing fleet, put forward by the EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg, is the latest in a series of backward moves from the European Commission and would reverse the 2002 Fisheries Council decision not to fund increased fishing capacity.
“Providing fishermen with new engines for their boats when there is no sustainable fisheries management in place is at best alarmingly short-sighted and at worst consigning the fishing industry to failure”, wrote Jim Leape, WWF’s Director General, in a letter to President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso.
“This is a complete U-turn on the commitments of the 2002 Common Fisheries Policy reform”, he added.
The European Commission wants to grant subsidies for new engines in small-scale fishing boats, claiming that these have a reduced impact on the marine environment. But this is not in fact the case, as fishing boats of less than 12 metres in length make up more than 80 per cent of the European fleet and 34 per cent of the engine power. Most of them operate off the French, Spanish and Portuguese coasts, where the state of stocks is among the worst in Europe.
In addition to this, it is widely acknowledged that there are shortcomings in Member States’ monitoring capacity, as approximately 80 per cent of new engines are on average 2.5 times more powerful than the legal limit engine power.
WWF urges EU Fisheries Ministers to block the European Fisheries Fund proposal and not to jeopardise the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy by adopting measures that will increase fishing capacity. Any decision on engine replacement should be delayed until a future Council meeting.
Notes to editors:
• The European Fisheries Fund is the instrument that will guide the distribution of EU fishing subsidies for the period 2007-2013. It replaces the existing instrument known as the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG).
• The Commission’s current compromise position threatens to allow the replacement of engines using Community Money on Aid for the replacement of engines and aid for the renewal and modernisation of the fleet for small scale coastal fishing. This comes on top of State Aid allowed for modernisation of engines. The European Commission is therefore presenting a compromise position that contradicts the objectives stated in the Common Fisheries Policy reform.
• In the run up to the EU Fisheries Council meeting, Ministers from Belgium, Denmark and Finland have received more than 20,000 e-mails from WWF campaigners asking them to use their Council vote to block agreement of the European Fisheries Fund (EFF) until later in the year.
• Last December the Fisheries Council, based on the already weak proposal from the European Commission, set Total Allowable Catches and quotas for 2006 at a level 45% above scientific advice.
For further information:
Markus Knigge, Fisheries Subsidies Officer
WWF European Policy Office
Tel: +32 2 743 8807
Mobile: +32 495 574844
E-mail: mknigge@wwfepo.org
Carol Phua, Fisheries Policy Officer
WWF European Policy Office
Tel: +32 2 740 09 28,
Mobile: +32 473 323779,
E-mail: cphua@wwfepo.org
