EU fish policy is ‘colonial’, writes MEP

The EU’s Common Fisheries Policy disregards the environment, snubs scientific evidence and ignores the rights of indigenous peoples, claims a centre-left MEP.

Portuguese socialist MEP, Paulo Casaca describes a recent EU court ruling giving part access to Azorean fishing grounds as an “inescapable landmark” of the types of decisions Europe’s citizens can expect from an EU with increased competence over fishing policy.

Writing in Parliament Magazine, Casaca argues that the CFP has been transformed from a “common sense solution” into a general policy that is eroding the livelihoods of island and coastal communities.

“No matter how obvious the scientific evidence, no matter how clear the economic and social damage, no matter how fishing communities’ rights will be ignored, this ruling proves that nothing will hinder the interests of large scale foreign fishing fleets sheltered by the powers of the EU-institutional monopoly,” said Casaca.

“In an area where democratic control is lacking, decisions are made indoors, in this specific case bluntly ignoring the European Parliament.”

Colonial

And Casaca, a member of the European Parliament’s fisheries committee argues that the jargon fuelled language used by Brussels hides the realities of a policy that is failing its citizens.

“We hear rhetoric borrowed from the common market lexicon such as ‘non discrimination’ and ‘free-access’ to describe what is nothing more than the old European colonial logic of ‘effective occupation,” he claims.

The MEP believes that changes to the CFP included in the text of the EU’s proposed constitution are also unacceptable.

“What is now approved is something of a completely different nature: to give European institutions the exclusive power to manage marine life.”

Price of EU Membership

And the EU’s fisheries regime received another blow on Wednesday, when Icelandic foreign Minister, Halldór Ásgrímsson said that the CFP had not delivered on its promises.

“Fishermen around the world are known for telling it as it is. In that spirit I must say that the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Union simply does not work,” said Ásgrímsson at a conference in northern Iceland.

The failure of the CFP has also impacted on the EU membership aspirations of countries bordering the North Atlantic, according to Ásgrímsson.

“Is it reasonable to demand that a country that depends on fisheries hands over the management of the resource to a body which has proven itself unable to manage its own resources?  We have been told time again that this is the price of membership,” he said.

Neglected

"I will go as far as saying that the policies of the European Union towards the fishing states in Northern Europe resemble neo-colonialism.”

And the economic and political flexibility shown to the bloc’s newest members in order to join the EU has not been shown to North Atlantic states argued Ásgrímsson.

“When it comes to the fishing nations of the North Atlantic there have been few signs of flexibility.  The European Union has not yet at least indicated that it will be willing to show the flexibility that is necessary in order to safeguard the fundamental interests of the fishing nations in the Northern part of Europe.”

“In a way, this part of Europe has been neglected by the European Union.”

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