Brussels, 24/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - Two recent reports support the European Commission up in its determination to carry out a “significant structural change within the EU fish catching sector and a far-reaching reform of the common fisheries policy (CFP)”, states a press release published on Thursday 23 June. The Annual Economic Report 2010 on the EU's fishing fleet highlights a drop in the economic performance of the fisheries sector of the EU in recent years. It lays out the economic trends in the sector over the period 2002-2008 at EU level. It appears, amongst other things, that the viability of the EU fleet fell in 2008, for the second year in a row. A second report on the fishing capacity of the EU shows that the size of the fishing fleet of the EU continues to fall very slowly, keeping in place a situation of overcapacity in the majority of the fleet.
In order to resolve these problems, the Commission is currently putting the finishing touches to proposals for far-reaching reforms of the CFP, which will suggest sustainable solutions to redress the situation and ensure an economically viable future for the fisheries sector of the EU.
The Annual Economic Report 2010. This report indicates that the drop in income and increase in fuel prices prevalent in 2008 had a major impact on the viability of the fishing sector. The added value it generated stood at €2.1 billion in 2008, or around 23% less than in 2007. Generally speaking, the profits of the fleet fell every year between 2006 and 2008. Although the EU fleet made an overall profit of €250 million in 2008 (around 6% of total income), an analysis of each individual segment shows that between 2002 and 2008, between 30% and 40% of the segments assessed made losses on average, which means that the viability of the capital invested was not enough in these segments. The data show that boats using passive gears (such as longliners, purse seiners, netters and vessels using pots and traps) generally recorded better results than those using active gears (such as demersal trawlers, beam trawlers and vessels using polyvalent active gears), with certain gear types, particularly the two above-mentioned trawlers, struggling to achieve viability. This poor economic performance is caused by factors such as poor development of fish stocks, the impact of fuel prices and overcapacity in parts of the EU fleet.
Balance between fishing capacity and stocks. The Commission has published a report on the efforts made by the member states in 2009 to create a sustainable balance between fishing capacity and fishing possibility. This report confirms the existence of overcapacity. In 2009, the overall reduction of capacity stood at the same level as in previous years, i.e. between 2% and 3% on average. However, given the rates for the reduction in capacity and in view of the fact that these reductions have been partially compensated for by technological progress, it will be difficult to remedy overcapacity in the short term without changes to the current policy.
Call for improved communication of data. Certain data are missing from the two reports due to the fact that the member states have not transmitted them in full. The Commission therefore calls on the member states to step up their cooperation by presenting exhaustive and high-quality economic data on their fishing fleets within the stated deadlines. (L.C./transl.fl)