World Wildlife Fund (WWF) advocates praised the European Parliament’s vote today to support a draft report on fisheries reform, which included five items on the WWF’s wish list.
The parliament’s fisheries committee, meeting in Brussels, Belgium this week, voted 13 to 10 in favor of the report, produced by Ulrike Rodust, on the common fisheries policy basic regulation, which the WWF called “the key to sustainable fisheries in the EU.”
The vote followed discussion of nearly 3,000 amendments to the measure, which were eventually pared down to 104 amendments before the vote. Among the provisions of the regulation, according to the WWF, are:
- Working to increase fish stocks to the point that the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) can increase by 2020 to the levels of the current biomass maximum sustainable yield (BMSY).
- Multi-annual Plans (MAPs) and a timeline for implementation in four years’ time
- Commitment to eliminate discards in European fisheries with a binding timetable
- Regional cooperation among stakeholders within or between member states to agree on management measures for shared fisheries
- Ensure EU fleets only fish surplus stocks from 3rd countries, and fight against illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing.
WWF are incredibly happy that this key stage of the reform process to make the EU fisheries policy more sustainable has been won, despite relentless opposition from certain individuals within the European Parliament’s fisheries committee who wanted to keep a status-quo,” said Roberto Ferrigno, the WWF European Police Office’s common fisheries policy project coordinator.
The regulation now goes before the full parliament for a final vote, and the WWF said it would continue to lobby for its adoption.
