The Committee on Fisheries adopted an own-initiative report by João FERREIRA (GUE/NGL, PT) on small-scale and artisanal fisheries and the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
Importance of small-scale fishing: the report stresses that small-scale fishing, by reason of its characteristics and its weight within the sector, has a pivotal role to play in achieving what should be the fundamental objectives of any fisheries policy: ensuring fish supplies to the public and the development of coastal communities, and promoting employment and improved living standards for fishing professionals, within a context of ensuring that resources are sustainable and are properly conserved.
The lead committee points out that the specific characteristics of small-scale fishing vary greatly from one Member State to another, and that opting for the lowest common denominator has rarely proved a constructive approach to European decision-making.
It suggests, therefore, that the starting-point should be a generic definition of artisanal fishing which takes account of a range of national and regional characteristics and differences in terms of governance, including, inter alia, respect for an artisanal tradition rooted in the area, with family involvement in both the ownership and activities of fisheries undertakings. These definition criteria should be flexible and/or can be combined and adapted in a balanced way to the diversity of small-scale fishing existing in the European Union.
Local management: the Members consider that the over-centralised model of fisheries management that has characterised the CFP over the last 30 years has been a failure and that the current reform must bring about meaningful decentralisation. They believe the reform of the CFP must create conditions that allow for local, regional and national specificities. They support local management, backed up by scientific knowledge and consultation and participation of the sector in defining, implementing, co-managing and evaluating policy. They strongly reject the imposition of transferable fishing concessions (TFCs) for every type of fleet.
In the new context of a decentralised and regionalised CFP, the Members consider that Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) should play a much greater role in the future Common Fisheries Policy.
They also consider that the future CFP should encourage the increased sustainability of the fleet in environmental, economic and social terms by promoting the progressive prevalence of sectors and operators that use selective fishing techniques and fishing gear with less impact on resources and the marine environment, and that benefit the communities of which they are part in terms of generating jobs and of the quality of those jobs.
Characteristics of the fleet: the Members reject any general reduction in the capacity of a given fleet solely and obligatorily on the basis of market criteria and imposed by a potential and unwanted enforcement of transferable fishing concessions. They highlight the need for statistics and indicators at European level that would provide reliable and sufficiently pertinent socio-economic, scientific and environmental data, including broad assessment of fish stocks and catches in both professional and recreational fishing.
The Commission is urged to:
- conduct an assessment of EU fleet capacity so as to enable the most appropriate decisions to be taken;
- monitor and adjust fleet capacity ceilings for Member States so that they are in line with reliable data and technical advances are taken into account;
- in particular, and in conjunction with the Member States, the RACs and stakeholders, to improve the characterisation of small-scale fishing and to map its distribution in the EU for the purposes of fisheries management.
Supporting measures: the Committee on Fisheries considers that the rules on implementing the future European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) should make it possible to finance actions, inter alia in the following areas:
· improving safety, living conditions and on-board working conditions, improving catch preservation, and making vessels more economically and environmentally sustainable (selection of techniques, energy efficiency, etc) while not increasing their fishing capacity;
· investment in more sustainable fishing gear;
· promotion of young people’s increased involvement in the sector’s activities and keeping them involved, through a special incentive scheme in response to the employment and sustainability challenges the sector is facing, as well as through start-up packages aimed at securing the entry of a new generation of fishermen into small-scale fisheries;
· construction of specialised fishing ports and specific facilities for the landing, storage and sale of fishery products;
· support for associations, organisations and cooperatives of the sector’s professionals;
· promotion of quality policies;
· promotion of the cohesion of the economic and social fabric of the coastal communities most dependant on small-scale fishing, with a particular focus on the outermost regions, in order to stimulate those coastal regions’ development;
· support for sustainable shellfishing practices;
· support for the promotion and marketing of artisanal fishery and extensive aquaculture products, through the creation of a European label to distinguish and identify European artisanal fishery and shellfish products;
· support for education and marketing campaigns to make consumers and young people aware of the value of consuming fish from small-scale fisheries;
· allocation of financing under the EMFF in such a way as to make the fisheries sector more women-friendly;
· vocational training, including training for women working in the fisheries sector, aimed at improving their access to managerial and technical jobs related to fishing;
· enhancing women's role in fishing, in particular by granting support for activities carried out on land, for related professionals and for activities associated with fishing, both upstream and downstream.
The report stresses that access to funds from the future EMFF should favour projects offering integrated solutions that benefit coastal communities as a whole. It also advocates the creation of specific and temporary support mechanisms to be implemented in emergencies such as natural or man-made disasters (oil slicks, water pollution, etc), fishing stoppages imposed by plans for restoring stocks or restructuring, or sudden short-term increases in fuel prices.
The Members, however, call for strict monitoring and certification of fisheries products imported from third countries to ensure that they originate from sustainable fisheries and that they meet the same requirements that Community producers have to comply with (e.g. with regard to labelling, traceability, phytosanitary regulations and minimum sizes).