EU ministers fishing in the dark

Paris, France: A plan to reform the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) by fiddling with catch quotas are not enough in the face of failing fisheries, WWF-France said yesterday.

Michel Barnier, French minister for agriculture and fishery, brought his European counterparts together for an informal meeting, during which they discussed individual quotas, transferable or otherwise, before reaffirming their attachment to the Total Allowable Catches (TAC) and quotas system.

However, according to Charles Braine, head of sustainable fishery for WWF-France, this was missing the point. “The question is not to know if quotas should be individual or not, but to bring the expertise of the scientists into the heart of the decision-making process for fisheries management,” said Braine.

“The French EU presidency has missed its target. Instead of re-thinking the CFP, France has suggested ‘adjustments’ such as multi-annual quotas and individual and administered quotas. That won’t change the situation.”

With 88 per cent of target species currently being over-fished, the EU is one of the worst offenders when it comes to fisheries management.

“The EU’s mistake has been to treat fishing as a production process, like agriculture,” said Braine. “However, it is not a production process but a collection process, and we are collecting wild species without being in a position to improve their production.

“To increase production the focus should be on the amount of each species that can be fished sustainably. But in their blindness, and with the support of the taxpayer’s money, EU fisheries have been led to the edge of bankruptcy. It is a human and environmental scandal.”