The first informal talks among EU fisheries ministers on the upcoming CFP reform ended in the Spanish Presidency reporting “unanimous agreement” on a set of priorities, including the need to separate small-scale and industrialised fishing.
Backlighted by the Commission’s 2009 Green Paper and the more than 380 responses to it, as well as declarations and demands from both NGOs and industry lobbyists, the ministers gathered for an informal Council meeting in the Spanish Atlantic port of Vigo on May 4-5.
The new Common Fisheries Policy is set to be decided in 2012 and take effect on Jan.1, 2013, replacing its then ten year old predecessor.
After the meeting, and discussions that also included representatives of the Commission and the European Parliament, Spain’s Minister for the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs Elena Espinosa recounted a list of needs the participants had agreed on for the new, reformed CFP:
- To distinguish between small-scale and industrial fishing.
- To create a specific fund for small-scale fishing, which includes environmental, technological and trade measures, “without leaving out the social dimension”.
- To seek other options for fisheries of a mixed nature, taking into account that the current CFP, as regards TACs and quotas, “does not constitute the only viable management model”.
- To avoid discards and look for formulas which minimise their impact.
- To take a “bottom-up approach” to decision making and “greatly simplify” CFP governance.
- To continue to improve the supply to the Common Market Organisation (CMO) in the fisheries product sector so that it also becomes a tool for aiding third countries.
- To provide a much more active role for regional fishing organisations, “particularly in those fishing areas where there is less monitoring”.
Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki, present at the meeting in Vigo, said the process toward a new CFP had now entered a “key phase”, reiterating that the Commission hoped its legislative proposal would be on the Council’s table by next year.
Ms. Espinosa, on her hand, stressed that the Presidency/Council and the Commission would now welcome an input of ideas so the Commission can put together a policy document which can act as a basis for the Ministers’ first formal discussions at the Council meeting in Luxembourg on June 29.
The meeting in Vigo had been preceded by several meetings among both NGOs and small-scale fishermen in neighboring La Coruña. A possibly ground-breaking meeting between those parties resulted in a declaration urging the ministers to put small-scale coastal fisheries “at the heart” of the CFP reform, and a following statement from eleven prominent NGOs underlined the importance of that “La Coruña Declaration”.