Two of Europe’s largest organizations representing fisheries and fishermen weighed in on the latest developments in the E.U.’s common fisheries policy (CFP) reform, with both praise and criticism for various provisions of the CFP.
Europêche, which represents the fisheries sector in Europe and 16 national organizations of fishing companies from 10 E.U. member states, and Copa-Cogeca, which represents fishery and aquaculture cooperatives in Europe, released a joint statement.
The release came after the announcement last week that E.U. legislative bodies had found common ground on many major provisions of the CFP.
"We acknowledge that an important step was taken on 30th May 2013, with the agreement defining the new rules of the CFP for the next 10 years,” Javier Garat, president of Europêche, and Giampaolo Buonfiglio, chairman of the Copa-Cogeca WP on fish, said in a joint statement.
Both groups, like other organizations that have already commented on the developments, reserved detailed comments for when details of the CFP are confirmed, but offered preliminary comments that both praised and criticized the proposed CFP changes.
One of the proposed changes is to ban discards, forcing fishermen to land everything they catch, something both groups did not approve of.
“The discard ban will without doubt lead to a complex technical adaptation process over a short period of time and large unforeseen cost increases for the fisheries sector.”
However, both groups praised other reforms that put more governance of the CFP into local authorities, saying, “If the new CFP characterized by decentralized governance will really be closer to regional authorities and stakeholders then it constitutes a step in the right direction.”
The groups also praised the proposed CFP changes that promoted developing aquaculture.
“The development of aquaculture in Europe is inextricably linked to developing a better EU framework and professionals from the sector therefore welcome the proposal to create an Advisory Council for this purpose,” they wrote.
