By Martin Banks - 10th November 2011
Fishermen have gone through difficult times with reduced quotas
Maria Damanaki
EU commissioner Maria Damanaki says that reform of the common fisheries policy (CFP) can deliver "economic and social" benefits.
Addressing a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday she said, "I believe we can achieve environmental sustainability.
"This can also deliver the social and economic sustainability that everybody is rightfully demanding for the people working in our fishing industry."
The official, who is responsible for maritime affairs and fisheries, was outlining her proposals for reforming the CFP at a meeting organised by the European Policy Centre.
She added, "There are fewer and fewer fish in the sea. Catches have constantly gone down since the nineties. We have fished too much. We have thrown away fish we don't want to land or for which we don't have quotas.
"And we have used taxpayer's money to build up our fleet. The result is that today 75 per cent of our stocks are overfished.
According to our impacts assessment, if we don’t break this vicious circle only eight fish stocks out of 136 will be sustainable by 2022."
She added, "This would be an economic disaster for our fishing industry, particularly small-scale fishermen, who cannot easily move to other waters.
"We will lose more jobs in the catching sector, but also in processing, transport and port infrastructure – just imagine the negative effect for the coastal regions.
"This will be the reality without a reform and we cannot let this happen."
She said, "I want to go for sustainability as a whole. I am talking about environmental sustainability and phasing out discards.
"I am talking about social sustainability, because we can build up healthy fish stocks in our waters and this is the best way to increase our fishermen's income.
"I would like to achieve this by modernising the way we take decisions. I am proposing regionalisation where the European parliament and council take leading decisions on long-term plans and framework technical measures with basic rules.
"Then the fishing industry should work hand in hand with the national administrations and the national parliaments, to set more detailed rules on mesh sizes and area closures."
She said she wants to "empower" the fishing industry so that it can bring its "know how" to the debate.
"I want to give them the proper support to market their products."
Pointing out that the commission will adopt a new European maritime and fisheries fund on 30 November she added, "Fishermen have gone through difficult times with reduced quotas.
"Was it hard for the fishermen? No doubt, yes it was for a while, but the result is clearly worth the temporary sacrifice. Jobs around those stocks now look a lot more secure.
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