In a plenary debate on Monday 18 January, MEPs argued in favour of ending overfishing and extending marine protected areas.
Caroline Roose (Greens/EFA, France), the rapporteur on sustainable fisheries, noted that having more fish in the sea “also means enabling fishermen to continue fishing in the long run”.
MSY. Roose reaffirmed that the EU is supposed to have achieved “good environmental status” with regard to the sea and maximum sustainable yield (MSY) by 2020. However, the targets have not been met, said Roose. The situation in the Mediterranean is alarming, but Commissioner for Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius has noted progress as a result of the multiannual plan for managing demersal stocks in the western Mediterranean.
Roose wants to go further to protect stocks, and proposes studying the relevance of MEY (maximum economic yield), which is more ambitious than MSY. This is an opinion that is not shared by either the Commissioner or a number of MEPs, including Gabriel Mato (EPP, Spain).
François-Xavier Bellamy (EPP, France) stressed the urgent need to take action to support “well thought out, managed and environmentally friendly” fishing. He criticised the harmful effects of ‘drifting fish aggregating devices’, which are used to catch tuna.
Marine protected areas. Roose noted that many of Europe’s marine protected areas “are only protected on paper: there is no monitoring, and incomplete management plans, where they exist”. “Although we pride ourselves on having protected 10% of Europe’s seas, fewer than 2% are actually protected”, according to NGOs.
The Commission’s biodiversity strategy has set a target for 30% of European waters to be covered by highly protected marine protected areas.
The Commissioner also proposed “expanding our network of marine protected areas, improving the way they are managed, and tackling other environmental factors that threaten our fish stocks, as well as fishing”.
He also called for the by-catches of sensitive species such as porpoises and dolphins to be monitored. “By-catches need to be eradicated or, where this is not possible, reduced to a minimum so as not to threaten the species’ conservation status”, said Sinkevičius.
Isabel Carvalhais (S&D, Portugal) called for effective monitoring of marine protected areas, which “are not incompatible with certain more selective fishing activities that have less of a negative impact on the environment”. She suggested implementing ambitious targets for the percentage of marine protected areas, as recommended in the 2030 biodiversity strategy.
The protection of 30% of our waters should be legally binding by 2030, said Grace O’Sullivan (Greens/EFA, Ireland).
The Commission is due to present an action plan in 2021 for conserving fisheries resources and protecting marine ecosystems, and evaluation of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will begin shortly.
The report can be found at: http://bit.ly/3p55KZS (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)