EU Fishing Subsidies Slammed in View of Cod Crisis

BRUSSELS, Belgium, November 28, 2002 (ENS) - European Union governments have been accused of offering a patchwork of environmentally damaging fishing subsidies, as fisheries ministers gather in Brussels to discuss stocks in crisis and system reforms. Support for new or modernized fishing vessels still outstrips that for reducing fishing effort, and subsidies vary enormously between countries, the conservation organization WWF warned Tuesday.

Four fishermen work to pull in a medium sized tuna. Favignana, Sicily, Italy 1999 (Photo by Danilo Cedrone courtesy FAO)

According to analysis carried out for WWF by the London based think tank Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), EU fisheries funding in the period 2000 to 2006 is set to reach almost twice the amount for 1994 to 1999.

WWF calls the trend "ludicrous," given the degree of crisis the sector is already facing due to overfishing.

Despite two changes to the rules since 1999 aimed at increasing the sector's sustainability, there is precious little evidence of any shift away from the most environmentally damaging subsidies, the IEEP report claims.

Tunas were much larger around Sicily in 1979. (Photo by Danilo Cedrone courtesy FAO)

Currently only Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain spend less on modernization and construction than on scrapping boats.

In the worst case, Ireland spends €4.39 on modernization and construction for every €1 on boat scrapping.

"There can be no sensible reason" for the huge variations in the amounts and patterns of fishing subsidies around the EU, says WWF.

Codfish, once a staple of European diet, is now scarce. (Photo courtesy FisherKing Seafoods)

At the Fisheries Council, ministers are continuing to debate reform of the EU Common Fisheries policy, following Commission proposals outlined in April.

Also on the table are a plan released by the Commission Tuesday on reducing catches and discards of unwanted fish, as well as proposals for emergency action to safeguard stocks of cod and hake in the light of scientific warnings of possible collapse in numbers of these important commercial species.

On Wednesday, the Commission presented ideas to the EU fisheries ministers for dealing with the cod crisis. The Commission is considering a strengthened recovery plan for cod, much stricter than the one it proposed a year ago, as an alternative to a complete moratorium on cod fishing.

European Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler (Photo courtesy European Commission)

"We find ourselves in an extraordinary situation where there are so few cod left in certain areas that scientists feel unable to predict the effects of potential recovery measures on the stocks concerned. Stocks that not so long ago produced 200,000 tonnes of food from EU waters are now so depleted that we are in the dark as to what is going to happen to them," the commissioner warned.

"We have a moral duty not to let these stocks disappear the way cod and the jobs for Canadian fishermen disappeared off the east coast of Canada. We also have a social duty to protect our coastal areas most dependent on fisheries," Fischler said.

The plan would require "very significant reductions in fishing effort and total allowable catches and strengthened technical measures and control," he said.

The plan is the commissioner's attempt to combine protection for the cod stocks with the possibility for the fleets to continue fishing, even if at much reduced levels.