Pour les océans
There are three good reasons why this slim volume is well worth the read. Firstly, it is clear, well-documented, well-argued and provides an insight into European fisheries policy, its challenges, interactions between the various players, its current limits, the progress it has made and its margin for further progression. Secondly, because it uses a dialogue format, with interviews conducted by the journalist Vanina Delmas allowing around 12 different individuals to have their say, including scientists, lawyers, craft fishermen, unions and a Senegalese opinion on fisheries agreements. Thirdly, it provides an introduction to Caroline Roose, a Belgian national who is an MEP in France on the Ecology/Greens list and a highly active member of the committee on fisheries at the European Parliament, where she has become an outspoken proponent of protecting the oceans and small-scale fisheries, to the great consternation of the French authorities and the industrial fishing lobbies they serve.
The European Union continues to be one of the world’s biggest fisheries players, although others have grown considerably in importance in this sector, first and foremost among them China, with practices of predation and, all too often, major damage to the environment. This means that European fisheries policy must face some complex issues with economic, social, climate, environmental, geopolitical and diplomatic dimensions, Roose stresses in her introduction by way of highlighting the difficult role apportioned to a committee on fisheries that is “fairly conservative: many of the MEPs sitting on it hail from regions in which the fishing industry is important and are more likely to express the demands of the industry than the general interest, prioritising the short term over the long term”(our translation throughout).
Didier Gascuel, head of the fisheries, ocean and coastline centre of the Institut Agro, in Rennes, points out that “in the Atlantic, fishing pressure and the proportion of over-fished stocks have fallen rapidly, while the average abundance of stocks has increased by nearly 40% in around 15 years”. “The trend has reversed because serious measures have been taken, such as setting quotas. But it must also be borne in mind that despite this progress, we have by no means reached the objective Europe has set for itself of putting an end to over-fishing”, he observes, adding that “in the Mediterranean, the situation is even more worrying: fishing pressure is twice what it should be as an average value (…). The picture is so bleak in the Mediterranean because there is no quotas policy, with the exception of bluefin tuna”.
The effects of climate change are already making themselves felt, with stock collapses “for cod in the North Sea and the Celtic Sea, where the waters are too warm, and for sole in the Bay of Biscay, which is suffering from a drop in fluvial inputs and nutriments as well as from drought”, Gascuel explains, going on to criticise what he describes as the “productivist and obsolete” standard represented in Europe by the maximum sustainable yield (MSY), in other words the level of catch believed compatible with maintaining the stock at the same quantitative level in the long term. He argues that more precautionary standards exist, in South Africa, Australia and the United States.
Among the measures he recommends, Gascuel calls for the increase in the mesh size of nets, which would help to reduce fishing pressure at no cost to vessels and allow them to fish at the same rate as currently. “For half of all species caught in the Atlantic, more than 40% of the catch is made up of juveniles”, he stresses, also recommending “a move towards ‘detrawlerisation’ and putting together a plan to run until 2050 to promote passive fishing gear wherever possible”. “For ecological and social reasons, we must prioritise small coastal fisheries as much as possible, rather than industrial fisheries. Today, small coastal fishing represents around 15% of catch. We could give it more.”
The head of research and “oceans” adviser at the CNRS, Joachim Claudet, states that “when evaluating all marine protected areas (MPA) in the Mediterranean, [he] observed that 7% of the area of the Mediterranean came under MPA status”, but that “almost none of them is fully protected; this means that most of them are not protecting much”. In the North-East Atlantic (an area that also covers the British Isles and Norway), there is the same considerable gap between an overall figure of 8% and full, high-level protection representing just 0.003% of the area. Although it has the second-largest exclusive economic area and the second-largest maritime territory in the world, “France is top of the chart when it comes to the gap between the quantity of declared MPA and the number of MPA under full protection”, the researcher notes.
Under cover of fairly hypocritical pretensions to a role of promoting of responsible fishing and the preservation of the marine ecosystems to the rest of the world, the French authorities in fact favour the most harmful techniques, starting with deep-sea trawling, which is a “disaster for ecosystems”. “It represents 30% of catch in Europe, yet accounts for 93% of discards at sea”, points out Claire Nouvian, director of the NGO Bloom.
“The French state is doing everything it can to dismantle small-scale fishing. It prefers industrial fishing as it is more profitable, employs low-cost foreign labour – and never mind the consequences for resources and the marine ecosystems”, states Pierre Morera, an artisanal fisherman in the Mediterranean.
But France is not the only thorn in the side of fishing policy. It even has serious rivals in the Netherlands, Spain and Greece, as we discover in the course of the book. This is a book that is not simply worth reading, it is worth stocking up on a few copies to give as Christmas presents! (Olivier Jehin)
Caroline Roose and Vanina Delmas (for the interviews). Pour les océans – Vers une autre politique européenne de pêche (available in French only). Les petits matins. ISBN: 978-2-3638-3383-9. 160 pages. €12,00
Désoccidentalisation
“For the first time in five centuries, the Western powers are no longer in a position to impose their requirements on the rest of the world. This is a major act that is tipping the international balances of power, which many observers wrongly assumed were unshakable”, Didier Billion and Christophe Ventura, respectively deputy director and director of research at the French Institut de relations internationales et stratégiques (IRIS), point out (our translation throughout).
“The garbage that is trotted out ad nauseam as we see the end of the bipolar world by authors like Francis Fukuyama, on the end of history, is believed only by those who want to believe it. Raised on the milk of Westernism, many people felt that there was no point in working on the root causes of the social, political and geopolitical fractures running through societies. The international developments quickly brought them face-to-face with the brutal reality of the facts and the term ‘de-Westernisation’ has gradually made its debut, rightly becoming a matter of public debate”, the authors state, although they consider the definition of the term insufficient.
In this context, both authors take the view that the “war in Ukraine has been particularly revealing, as many States that were seen as close to the United States and Western powers have moved away from past allegiances, which are now no longer relevant”. They cite India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“Although de-Westernisation describes a process underway – that of the gradual erosion of the proclaimed values, power and influence of the Western countries over many so-called countries of the South – it also calls into question the legitimacy of the international system that came into being in 1945”, Billion and Ventura explain, adding: “the current crisis of globalisation reveals a power struggle between the powers of the North and South, Western or otherwise, that is being played out within the same system that is common to both, of which nobody would question the basis and in which everybody seeks to reinforce their own position, allying with or competing against, depending on their immediate material and strategic interests, irrespective of geographical or cultural considerations. These contradictory processes manifest themselves without a separation being necessary or even desirable – for instance, the fierce competition between the United States and China does not stop them from being strongly linked together within the globalised capitalist economy”.
“The avatars of the notion of ‘Global South’ illustrate very clearly the pitfalls of the dominant thinking, which removes the differences between specific national projects and masks not only resistances to capitalism, but also the competitive games that can strengthen them”, the authors argue, adding that this notion should be put into its proper context. “First of all, ‘Global South’ is a group of countries which are at least as different from each other as they are similar. Secondly, certain so-called countries of the South or emerging countries have now almost fully ‘emerged’ and rely on leadership elites and middle and upper classes that can be counted in tens or hundreds of millions of people and whose lifestyles and standards of living are equivalent to those of the ‘Global North. Thirdly and finally, there is as much ‘North’ in the countries of the ‘South’ (lifestyles, social aspirations, political and state systems, etc.) as there is ‘South” countries of the ‘North’ (diasporas, etc.)”, they explain.
Lastly, Billion and Ventura argue that its “improper invocation by the ‘international community’ often fails to hide the fact that the sovereign states have abandoned of some or all of their prerogatives in favour of the dictatorship of the market”. Although the concept of “dictatorship of the market” is questionable and the sovereignty of the States, which is often limited by various dependencies and other vassal ties to other states, effectively nullifying their sovereignty – by definition absolute – the virtual nature of the international community and the forms of resignation hiding behind this invocation cannot be denied. Much more questionable, in our view, is what follows: “the sovereign states (in other words, if one only includes those that genuinely are, the United States, Russia, China, with the exception of many others) continue to be necessary for the implementation of an orderly regulation of the relationship between the people (a choice of words that seems to refer to an immaturity of the people that is redolent of the 19th century and even a very French tradition that puts the State, and the Nation forged by it, above the people). And no so-called ‘international community’ will act in their place. This is why it is imperative not to give in to the thinking – Liberal, Libertarian or Federalist – calling for the decline of states. Although the form in which human societies are organised will not be that of the nation-state forever, the fact remains that these days, despite all its limitations, it is still the most efficient model”. Well, apart from the various federal formats that have all proved their worth, from Switzerland to Germany via the United States! (OJ)
Didier Billion and Christophe Ventura. Désoccidentalisation – Repenser l’ordre du monde (available in French only). Agone. ISBN: 978-2-7489-0537-3. 166 pages. €14,00
Die Türkei nach den Wahlen vom Mai 2023
The Südosteuropa Mitteilungen devotes much of its latest edition to the implications of the elections of May 2023 from which Recep Tayyip Erdoğan emerged victorious. Burak Çopur and Kemal Bozay, lecturers at Essen and Cologne respectively (IU Internationalen Hochschule, in both cases) examine the extreme weakening of the Turkish opposition following its defeat, which they put down, at least partly, to the attempt by their candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, to make up some ground between the two rounds of the election by moving from the rhetoric of compassion (Menschenliebe) and understanding (Verständigung) to a narrative of hate and propaganda (Hass und Hetze).
“The real winners in these elections are Turkish nationalism and political Islam. Turkey’s century-long history, with its pillars of nationalism and authoritarianism, combined with Erdoğan’s neo-Ottoman fantasies over his 20 years of power, have left a deep imprint on society. The general and presidential elections have thus led to a greater shift to the right (…) than before. The Parliament now has at least 400 members (including the opposition) from right of centre, be they Islamic conservatives, radical Islamists or even far right”, the authors point out. They go on to stress that Erdoğan will continue to “build and reinforce islamo-nationalistic autocracy” and that a continuation of social pressure and the political repression of minorities (Kurds, Alevis and LGBT+) and of critical intellectuals, scientists and journalists is to be expected.
Ioannis Grigoriadis (ELIAMEP and Bilkent University, Ankara) analyses the development of relations between Greece and Turkey since 2019. He argues that the emergence (with the government of de Kyriakos Mitsotakis) of a single-party Greek government will go a long way to continue the détente (which came about after the earthquake, in the wake of the assistance provided by Greece) and make it easier for initiatives to be instituted with a view to fresh efforts to move closer together in stages, starting with easier subjects before moving onto the disputes between the two countries, which have been around for a very long time, and even discussions on the possibility of relaunching the Cypriot peace process. However, the evolution of the relationship will continue to depend on the internal political situation, in Greece and Turkey alike.
In an extremely well-documented article, Jens Bastian (SWP) stresses that despite the major economic crisis hitting Turkey hard, the economic and social troubles did not bring down the Turkish President. All the same, the cost of living, the depreciation of the Turkish pound and the management of reconstruction efforts following the earthquake of 6 February are still major challenges for the re-elected President. (OJ)
Die Türkei nach den Wahlen vom Mai 2023 (available in German only) Südosteuropa Mitteilungen. 03-04/2023. ISSN: 0340-174X. 136 pages. €15,00