Brussels, 31/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a joint press release on Wednesday, the association of national organisations of fishing enterprises in the EU (Europêche) and the General Committee of Agricultural Cooperatives in the EC (Cogeca, fisheries section) state that professionals of the sector gave an on the spot and highly mitigated welcome to the proposals of reform for the Common Fisheries Policy.
The first comments of the sector represented by the two organisations are that: - the Commission presents reform in a context which, as the professionals see it, is exaggeratedly gloomy and may have a negative impact on the image of the sector: - regarding the fixing of TACs and quotas on a multiannual basis, the meaning that the Commission gives to multiannuality "does not correspond to the expectations of the sector, which not only hopes for medium-term visibility allowing more balanced exploitation of resources, but also limited and scientifically based differences in TACs from one year to the next; - regarding the fleet, the Commission proposes decreases from 30-60%, which would "not fail to hit companies and crew hard thus also hitting the socio-economic fabric of the coastal regions"; - abolition of all public aid and the repartition of structural funds thus released to make fishing boats disappear or to retrain the crews. If applied "to the letter and as brutally (…) it could mean the death penalty for many fleets of EU Member States"; - the "greening" of CFP to use Commissioner Fischler's expression leads to exaggerated protection of cetaceans, birds and other predators; - although the idea of governance and increased participation by actors of the sector in the CFP process "may seem attractive at first sight, it is not certain that implementation will necessarily correspond to the desires of the professionals".
The sector represented by Europêche and Cogeca fisheries welcomes, however, "in principle", the idea of control based on a common inspection structure for harmonisation of controls and sanctions.