Fisheries catch EU between the devil and the deep blue sea

Dec 18, 2007, 8:02 GMT

Brussels - There are two reasons that the European Union's fishing industry is unique.

Firstly, it is the only method of food production left in Europe which still relies on hunting wild animals.

Secondly, it is the only policy area in the EU which even the bloc's own policy-makers say is a failure.

'Most fish stocks remain overfished ... If we do not (make further efforts), the result will be the rapid decline of overfished stocks, and lasting damage to the fleets that depend on them,' EU Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Commissioner Joe Borg said in late November.

Ever since it was established 50 years ago, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which is overseen by the EU's executive, the Commission, has been caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Fishermen say that it is destroying their livelihood, while environmentalists say that it is destroying the sea.

Every year, the Commission proposes a series of quotas for catches of Europe's most vulnerable fish species. Those proposals are then modified by EU fisheries ministers in marathon talks. The latest round to set quotas in 2008, is being held in Brussels this week.

'What the Commission tries to do is make sure the fisheries are sustainable not just in biological, but in economic and social terms. It's about finding a way to make the situation better for the fish population without killing the fleets,' Mireille Thom, Borg's spokeswoman, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

But the effect of the annual compromise has been disastrous, with EU ministers setting quotas wildly out of line with scientific advice - an average of 50 per cent higher over the last five years, according to the Commission - and fish stocks plummeting as a result.

'The CFP has failed because it can't manage fish. When we set quotas we pretend we know how many fish there are, how many we can take out and what other pressures there are on the environment, but all we actually know about is the people,' Saskia Richartz, marine-affairs policy director at environmental group Greenpeace, said.

At present, according to Commission scientists, three-quarters of all the European fish species for which they have accurate information are being 'fished unsustainably.' 

The latest Commission proposals for quotas in 2008 include sweeping cuts for practically all Europe's main food fish in at least some sea areas - herring, cod, whiting, sole and plaice among them.

But those proposals have already been criticized by fishermen and politicians, who accuse the Commission of setting quotas so low that they are forced to throw marketable fish overboard.

Environmentalists warn that the most probable result will be that ministers meeting in Brussels this week will once again set quotas which are out of line with scientific advice.

'Ministers are very much defending the position of their own side - it's a very nationalist debate. They're all fighting for the survival of the industry,' Carol Phua, fisheries policy officer at environmental group WWF, said.

The irony of the situation is that if they do so, scientists and environmentalists warn that Europe's fish stocks could simply implode - leaving the industry facing the very crisis which ministers say they want to avoid.

'Unless the Commission changes the way decisions are made, there's going to be a collapse,' Phua said bluntly.

Officials in Brussels say that fishermen in some EU states are changing their ways and introducing more sustainable fishing methods.

But with most estimates agreeing that the EU's fishing fleets are some 40 per cent too big for the populations they hunt, the only long-term solution seems to be for fishermen to stop fishing.

'It's a crisis situation. We are talking the loss of jobs: there will be some hardship,' Richartz said.

And with fisheries ministers hardly likely to try and pass that message onto their hard-pressed coastal constituencies, the EU looks unlikely to solve the problem of too many hooks spoiling the broth any time soon.