Terming it ”artificial respiration”, Sweden’s Auditor General criticises her government’s support to the fishing industry.
In a new report Eva Lindström, one of three national Auditor Generals, claims that the government uses one hand to give fishermen support to continue fishing, while the other hand offers support for stopping. “In other words, tax payers get little in exchange for their money with today’s efforts”, she concludes.
Overcapacity in the fishing fleet is a major problem as regards professional fisheries, she writes, presenting the study in the Dagens Nyheter daily. A reduction of this fleet is decisive for reaching the goal of long-term sustainable fisheries, but such a reduction is counteracted by huge subsidies and exemptions from taxes, she adds.
Swedish subsidies to fisheries, via the European Union and the national budget, amount to a total close to the processing value of the entire industry (€34 million in 2006). The government also offers scrapping subsidies. Sweden’s Minister for Fisheries earlier this year suggested those subsidies could be raised, but the Auditor General now says that this would not be enough for a desired cutback in the fishing fleet, since the subsidies for continued fishing would still be too advantageous.
She adds that the exemptions from energy, carbon dioxide and sulphur taxes reduce the incentive to use less energy-demanding engines and fishing methods. The fishing industry has the third highest rate of carbon dioxide emissions as compared to the process value of the sector, she writes, more than double the relative size of those from the nation’s steel and other metal plants.
She further criticises the legal system’s sanctions for breaching laws and regulations as insufficient.
Quotas set by the EU are no obstacle for creating national rules, she says, claiming that her study shows that the government has much room for acting on its own to save threatened stocks. That is also true for the system of controls. She concludes that those opportunities have not been used “to an extent that is sufficient to obtain long-term sustainable fisheries”.
In her presentation article in Dagens Nyheter, she summarizes her recommendations to the Swedish government in five points:
- Reduced overcapacity in the Swedish fishing fleet.
- Consider if subsidies and tax exemptions can be reduced or removed.
- Make controls deter from breaching rules and regulations.
- Make sure that overall goals are not counteracted by conflicting means of control.
- Develop the reporting back to authorities to make it transparent, show real costs for different efforts and whether the means of control really contribute to sustainable fisheries.
“Anything else is a waste of taxpayers’ money”, she concludes.
Commenting on the report, the Swedish Board of Fisheries said it “welcomed” it, and that the recommendations would “give us extended support in out work to obtain sustainable fisheries”.