From today and onwards Europeans will be eating fish from outside their own waters. Research conducted by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) reveals the extent to which EU countries rely on fish from outside their waters to maintain their high levels of fish consumption.
The 2014 update of NEF’s Fish Dependence report has found that, despite its potentially abundant and productive seas, about one out of every two fish consumed in the EU is sourced from non-EU waters. This means that Europeans are eating more fish than its seas produce and continue to miss on the huge economic benefits that would result from letting fish stocks grow.
- If the EU were only to consume fish from its own waters, it would run-out of fish on 11 July.
- The EU is still dependent on non-EU fish to support around 48 per cent of its fish consumption.
- The levels of “fish dependence” have become stable over the past years halting the negative trend of the past decades; but they remain disproportionately high.
- Restoring 43 fish stocks above a biomass where they can produce their maximum sustainable yield would move the EU’s fish dependence day to 85 days later in the year, on 4 October.
- The potential improvement in restoring 43 fish stocks is more than twice the size of the current external catches by the EU fleet, or more than half of the entire EU fish import deficit.
EU remains Fish Dependent
Although the EU’s fish dependence day has moved later in the calendar by six days since 2008 – meaning a slight decrease in the EU’s reliance on fish from abroad – it is still three weeks earlier and the EU is therefore more dependent on external seafood sources than in 2000. The fact that levels of dependence are not increasing could be seen as a sign that overfishing is easing in EU waters. However, a recent report by the European Commission shows that the number of overfished stocks in the North East Atlantic, as well as the extent of overfishing, has increased between 2013 and 2014. This is a step backwards from the trend between 2007 and 2013, when the same region had seen a reduction in the number of overfished stocks.
Implementing the new Common Fisheries Policy
Despite having some of the largest and richest fishing grounds in the world, the EU also has some of the unhealthiest. European fisheries are still very far from where it should be.
The EU needs to focus efforts on restoring its own marine ecosystems and to move towards consumption levels that fit within ecosystem capacity. The newly reformed EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is an opportunity to deliver healthier fish stocks, properly managed in the public interest and to reduce EU levels of fish dependence. Better managed fish stocks in Europe would deliver significant benefits to society in terms of food, revenue and jobs. Restoring EU fish stocks could support up to 100,000 more jobs and enough fish to feed 100 million EU citizens a year.
EU member states need to look beyond the short-term costs of fish stock restoration and turn the potential long-term benefits that healthy marine resources can provide into a reality.