Speaking to the European Parliament’s fisheries committee in Strasbourg, France, late last week, European Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki appealed to parliamentarians to make reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) a “top priority” over the next two years.
“We are facing very serious time constraints,” warned Damanaki.
Reform to the much-criticized CFP kicked off two years ago when the executive body of Europe, the European Commission, published a green paper that laid out the policy’s shortcomings.
The CFP rubber stamps quotas, subsidies and, arguably, the distribution of a certain legislative and monetary power across the EU, so reform to this politically charged policy involves thousands of voices and stakeholders.
Damanaki has set out to develop a reform package, not a “hotchpotch of random pieces of legislation,” effective on 1 January 2013. To achieve this, the commissioner has targeted the end of June 2011 as the deadline for completing the varying elements in the package.
The package is composed of five elements, Damanaki told the MEPs. Firstly, an overarching EC communication will lay out the proposals and highlight areas that are not a part of the proposed legal instruments.
“I am thinking here, for example, about issues such as what we intend to do to improve the quality of scientific advice,” said Damanaki.
The second element will be a document on the “reformed international dimension” of the CFP, covering international organizations such as Regional Fisheries Management Organizations and Fisheries Partnership Agreements.
The third element will be a framework for the functioning of the CFP to “introduce the radical reform we have already discussed,” said Damanaki.
And of key interest to the seafood supply chain, reform to the market policy marks the fourth element. According to Damanaki, this will address the organization of the industry and the role of producer organizations, management of fisheries and aquaculture activities, and seafood marketing. She added that the EC will also “revisit instruments to support stability of the market and information to consumers through a labeling system.”
The fifth and final element will be a fund to support the new CFP, Integrated Maritime Policy and aquaculture, a fund that will “help deliver the policy we want,” said Damanaki.
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