EU executive plans fleet cut to save fish stocks
Date: 29-May-02
Country: EU
Author: David Evans
After weeks of internal wrangling, the Commission unveiled bitterly disputed plans to cut the total time EU trawlers spend at sea by between 30 and 60 percent, depending on the fish species and region.
That means a reduction of some 8,600 vessels, 8.5 percent of the boats operating from European Union ports. Tens of thousands of the bloc's 260,000 fishermen face an uncertain future.
The plan would scrap 460 million euros ($428 million) in aid planned over the next four years to build vessels or modernise old ones, and fund schemes encouraging fishermen to retire or change jobs.
"The alternative is clear. Either we take hard but essential decisions now or we hand our industry over to death by a thousand cuts in a few years time," EU Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler told a news conference.
The plans, which face a rough ride with EU governments, have been criticised by Mediterranean countries led by Spain, the biggest beneficiary of the one billion euro a year EU policy.
SPAIN, PORTUGAL, FRANCE CRITICAL
The self-proclaimed "Friends of Fishing" - Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Ireland - blame industrial fishing by Nordic countries, mainly to produce fishmeal, for the crisis.
The proposals were adopted after two delays in an atmosphere poisoned by recrimination over Spanish pressure on Brussels. Spain holds the rotating EU presidency and is home to almost one third of the Union's trawlermen.
In Madrid, fisheries minister Miguel Arias Canete told parliament: "We get the impression the European Commission has scientific reports that do not reflect the reality of stocks compared with reports we get from boat owners and fishermen."
Portugal's Fisheries Secretary Luis Frazao Gomes declared the plan spelt "death foretold" to Lisbon's fishing industry.
Spain and Portugal would finally get access to northern European waters under the plan. But it is not clear whether they would be granted quotas to catch there.
The French farm ministry said there were many unacceptable aspects to the proposal which "lacked ambition".
"It does not give French and European fishermen the position they have a right to expect and does nothing to open up a future for the whole of the profession," it said in a statement.
The prospect of Spain's coastal communities being decimated prompted Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to intervene personally with Commission President Romano Prodi last month.
That, and a letter from Commission Vice-President Loyola de Palacio, a former Spanish fisheries minister, to Fischler asking for a re-think of the reforms sparked accusations of illegal national meddling in the independent Commission's deliberations.
Prodi publicly endorsed the proposals in a statement yesterday, stressing that their adoption "once again demonstrates that the Commission acts in the common European interest".
However, de Palacio reaffirmed her opposition to the plan in a second letter to Fischler obtained by Reuters yesterday.
STOCKS UNDER PRESSURE
Scientists have warned years of over-fishing have seriously depleted stocks of many species in European waters. Emergency measures are already in place to save North Sea cod stocks.
Fischler proposed replacing the political haggling every December to set the year's catch quotas with programmes lasting several years, which scientists say will protect stocks better.
The commissioner, who hails from landlocked Austria, said the reform did not mean the EU believed fish were more important than fishermen. "But if we carry on like this, both will dwindle and disappear more and more," he said.
British Fisheries Minister Elliot Morley agreed it was time for change but told BBC radio there would be tough talks ahead.
"The Common Fisheries Policy has really failed to deliver in terms of conservation and it does need to be reformed," he said.
Irish Marine Minister Frank Fahey told Reuters: "We realise that stocks are under threat and we're
