On Wednesday 15 April, the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries called for improvements to European legislation on maritime spatial planning (Directive 2014/89/EU) in order to improve fishers’ safety and maritime ecosystems’ health.
In adopting (24 votes in favour, one against and two abstentions) the draft own-initiative report by Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (Renew Europe, French) on this issue, MEPs regretted that the current legal framework for maritime spatial management plans had not produced the expected results for fisheries. They claim that the opportunity has been missed to improve the predictability and stability for fishery activities, and to minimise conflict between the various sectors and users of the sea, particularly when it comes to fisheries and aquaculture.
For these MEPs, maritime spatial planning needs to integrate fisheries and aquaculture more fully and actively address the spatial challenges affecting the sector, including the cumulative impact of offshore energy infrastructures, marine protected areas, and navigation and defence zones, which tend to marginalise fishing activities.
In particular, MEPs point out that fisheries and aquaculture “are often overshadowed by other, more powerful or economically important sectors, such as offshore energy”, which often leads operators to bypass consultation processes, “at the expense of less organised actors, such as small-scale fishers”. They therefore want offshore wind farms to be placed in zones that are less suitable for fishing.
Ms Yon-Courtin emphasised that “planning is the solution for the balanced use of maritime space, making it possible to reduce conflicts of use and prevent fishing and aquaculture from being excluded or supplanted by other activities”. The report will be voted on at the European Parliament plenary session in June.
In the ‘European Ocean Pact’, the European Commission committed itself to revising the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (see EUROPE 13654/3). Consultations have already been launched to prepare this future legislative proposal.
Link to the compromise amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/lkd (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)