In the early hours of this morning, a long awaited deal on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform was struck between the Irish Presidency and the European Parliament. Negotiations were tortuous, but ultimately a compromise was reached on the key sticking points in the reform.
The compromise signals a turning point for EU fisheries, and is a landmark in the fight to save our seas, but falls short of ending overfishing by 2015. The Parliament did achieve an obligation to rebuild fish stocks above levels allowing Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2015. However, the Council has imposed an exception that would allow a delay until 2020 where reductions in fishing would seriously jeopardise the social and economic sustainability of the fishing fleets involved. The compromise represents real progress on a number of critical areas, including new measures to eliminate excess fleet capacity, control measures and reduction of discards. A big step forward is the new onus on Member States to use environmental and social criteria in allocating fishing opportunities, creating an unprecedented incentive for those who fish responsibly.
Johanna Karhu, EU Marine and Fisheries Policy Officer at BirdLife Europe said: “This deal falls short of what is truly needed to reverse the scandal of overfishing, but it’s a sea change on a number of fronts, especially in rewarding fishermen with the lightest footprint on the marine environment. Such ambition is a vindication of the Parliament’s powers to flex their muscles on fisheries policy and BirdLife Europe warmly commends their hugely constructive role. With the CFP reform agreed, the spotlight is now on the Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). It is crucial that that the new EMFF stops using EU money for perverse subsidies promoting overfishing and is redirected toward real investments in sustainability and recovery of marine ecosystems.”
The CFP reform itself is not done and dusted yet. The compromise text still awaits technical finessing and approval by the committee of permanent representatives. After the agreement on the CFP reform, the negotiations on the future funding instrument EMFF still continue as well as the reform of the data collection regulation and technical conservation measures, which will need to stand up to the same level of ambition as set in the CFP Basic regulation.