EU vows to tackle overfishing with policy overhaul

European Union ministers on Wednesday vowed to overhaul their 840 million euro-a-year fishing subsidies policy by next year to avoid overfishing and make the industry more sustainable.

In British waters alone, scientists estimate fish stocks have declined by 94% in the past 118 years and commercial fishing has profoundly changed seabed ecosystems, leading to a collapse in numbers of many species.

Environmental groups say the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), due to be reformed from 2012, has depleted fish stocks by swelling Europe's fishing fleet, the world's third largest.

Greenpeace has called on the EU to cut its fleet and set aside 40% of EU waters as protected marine reserves.

"We need a turnaround in our policy," EU Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki told journalists after a meeting of the bloc's fisheries ministers in Vigo, the hub of Spain's fishing industry.

"We have great problems of overfishing and overcapacity all over Europe and we have to face these problems."

Spanish Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Elena Espinosa, who chaired the meeting as rotating EU president, said the bloc planned to distinguish between small-scale and industrial fishing in the new version of the CFP.

"Another of them [the proposals] is the creation of a specific fund for small-scale fishing," she said.

Environmentalists sceptical

According to Pew Environment Trust, Spain is the biggest recipient of EU and national fishing subsidies, accounting for 46% of the bloc total between 2000-2006.

Damanaki added that the EU was considering introducing "International Transferable Rights" (ITRs), which would allow firms in one member state to buy fishing quotas from another.

"This is a very good tool to face overcapacity at the national level," she said. "If we introduce ITRs at the national level, we shall do it with safeguards for avoiding concentration of the rights and the elimination of small boats."

Definitions of "small-scale" have yet to be agreed on for the reform, but current estimates show that small vessels make up about 80% of the EU fishing fleet.

"If the Commission is proposing to support the modernisation of vessels, it is contributing to maintaining overcapacities and the depletion of EU fisheries resources," said Markus Knigge, spokesman for Pew Environment Trust.

The latest EU data show that fishing and processing provided work for 229,702 people in the bloc in 2004. The EU fleet landed 4.44 million tonnes of fish in 2006, worth 6.7 billion euros, the third largest catch in the world behind China's and Peru's.

(EURACTIV with Reuters.)

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