By Martin Banks - 9th February 2012
The catastrophic failure of the CFP is something we have highlighted for years
Struan Stevenson
MEPs have described a new report by European auditors on the EU's management of fish stocks as "damning".
Speaking on Thursday, they said the report is "further proof of the catastrophic failure" of the EU's common fisheries policy (CFP).
The report by the Court of Auditors, which was drafted late last year, is said to highlight a "string of failings" in the CFP policy and its implementation.
It says the policy has neither protected fish stocks nor exploited potential capacity for fishing fleets.
The report, formally released to MEPs on Thursday, states that despite the huge amounts of taxpayers cash spent on the policy, €1.7bn has been wasted since 2002 on vessel decommissioning with "no tangible results".
It goes on to say that 90 per cent of fish stocks are over fished, that 30 per cent of these are over safe biological limits and some 100,000 jobs have been lost in fishing to date.
The future sustainability of fishing in the EU cannot be guaranteed, it warns.
MEP reaction was swift with Scottish deputy Struan Stevenson saying, "The CFP has failed to address the problems being faced, has failed to properly update fishing registers and has failed to implement an effective monitoring system.
Stevenson, an ECR member, added, "The report is a resounding condemnation of 40 years of failure. It confirms the CFP is badly-conceived, badly-targeted and badly-managed.
"It says the CFP cannot even adequately define or quantify where overcapacity exists - so it ends up paying to scrap the wrong vessels, with no benefit to fish stocks.
"Of course the EU auditors are absolutely correct. The catastrophic failure of the CFP is something we have highlighted for years - but now when we have a chance to implement major reforms we are being told by the commission's lawyers that we may not be allowed to devolve day to day management of fisheries back to member states because that would represent a breach of the treaties.
"It appears to some of the commission bureaucrats, the integrity of the treaties is more important than a sustainable EU fishery.
"Yet this report shows the urgent need to remove decisions of this importance from the Brussels desk jockeys so they can be taken more-locally by people who know and understand the fleets and the fisheries," said Stevenson, deputy chair of the fisheries committee.
The report was formally discussed in parliament's budgetary control committee on Thursday where UKIP MEP Marta Andreasen declared, "This report is a savage indictment of a failed policy.
"It underlines what we all know: that the CFP has been an unmitigated disaster.
"Since its creation it has replaced sound national policies that preserved stocks and set boundaries, to an expensive and wasteful free for all controlled by eurocrats in Brussels who, according to this report, seem to know nothing about fishing.
"The discards fiasco - an abhorrent and sinful waste of fish life - is a direct consequence of this lack of knowledge at EU level. Throwing dead but perfectly healthy and edible fish back into the sea because of daft quota rules is testament again to this policy's failure."
Andreasen, who gave a special presentation on CFP to the committee, added, "Even the commissioner responsible had the good grace to admit recently that the CFP is not working and wants to reform the whole thing. The difficulty for me and the many fishermen I have spoken to is that we have zero faith that the very same people who created this shambles are in a position to offer sensible and workable changes."
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