report parliamentary committee draft, 8 November 2022
On the state of play in the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy and future perspectives
Document PECH-PR-719724 · (2021/2169(INI))
Committee on Fisheries · Rapporteur: Gabriel Mato
Full text
Motion for a european parliament resolution 74 paragraphs
(2021/2169(INI))
The European Parliament,
–having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and in particular Articles 3, 4, 5, 11, 38, 39, 43 and 349,
–having regard to Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on the common fisheries policy (CFP),
–having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,
–having regard to the report of the Committee on Fisheries (A9-0000/2022),
A.whereas given that the European Parliament has already expressed its views on several specific features of the CFP, it is appropriate to mainly focus hereafter on the conservation of marine biological resources and the management of fisheries under the CFP;
General objectives of the CFP
1.Recalls that the CFP must ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the long term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, and of contributing to the availability of food supplies;
2.Regrets that, since 2014, the implementation of the CFP has primarily focused on the environmental aspect of this policy, as a prerequisite to and at the expense of socioeconomic and food security considerations; considers that the resulting negative impacts on the fishing sector have been exacerbated since Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, and that these negative impacts continue to increase and have become unsustainable due to recent international geopolitical developments;
3.Underlines that seafood has a generally lower carbon footprint than land-based food, which indicates the strategic value of seafood in the context of the European Green Deal;
4.Considers that the CFP reform should aim to reach a re-equilibration between its objectives; therefore supports strengthening the CFP’s socioeconomic and food security dimensions and the reaching of a level playing field in its international dimension;
Read the rest (62 paragraphs)
5.Calls on the Commission, to that end, to systematically conduct full ex ante and ex post impact assessments, including socioeconomic analyses, before any strategy or legislation is proposed or any policy decisions are taken;
6.Calls on the Commission and the Council to place more value in policy-making on the importance of fisheries in contributing to food supplies;
7.Stresses the strategic role of fishers in the food value chain and in food security;
Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY)
8.Considers that the introduction of MSY as a fisheries management reference point has been a driver for improving the overall state of fish stocks; considers, however, that the MSY objective should be implemented in light of the practical reality and in consideration of the socioeconomic, proportionality and food security dimensions enshrined in the Treaty and in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) code of conduct;
9.Recalls in this regard that the MSY target ‘for all stocks by 2020’ had already evolved in the regulations on regional multiannual plans adopted after 2013;
10.Considers therefore that the MSY objective in Regulation (EU) 1380/2013 (the CFP Basic Regulation) should be adapted accordingly;
Landing obligation and reduction of unwanted catches
11.Reiterates the views expressed in its resolution of 18 May 2021 on the landing obligation; recalls that the landing obligation, introduced as a fundamental paradigm shift in fisheries management, is not properly implemented; highlights again that the landing obligation is not a goal in itself but a tool to minimise unwanted catches and that an assessment of the socioeconomic impact of this obligation must be carried out;
12.Considers further that:
–the current landing obligation should be applied in a flexible manner, taking into account the specific characteristics of each fishery;
–the scope of the landing obligation should be reviewed so as to limit the problems of choke species and complex derogations;
–the landing obligation should be made more attractive, notably through incentives, to improve ownership by operators and thereby compliance;
13.Insists that the objective of minimising unwanted catches should be primarily met by using technical measures and should be supported by better documenting catches; calls on the Commission to propose to the co-legislators other alternatives to the landing obligation;
Conservation measures
Fishing opportunities
14.Recalls that total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas are the most direct way of managing fishing mortality, but single stock TACs can be problematic in mixed fisheries (due to the choke effect);
15.Calls on the Commission and the Council to set TACs only for the main target stocks;
16.Underlines that the relative stability, established four decades ago, is widely accepted as an essential instrument to provide long-term predictability and continuity in sharing fish stocks between countries; stresses, however, that the gap between national quota allocations and the actual interests of Member States’ fishing fleets has significantly increased over time and has been further exacerbated by Brexit; stresses also that climate change has a considerable impact on the distribution of fish stocks;
17.Believes therefore that it is necessary to adjust the present relative stability while preserving the basic tenets of this principle; to this end, calls on the Commission to provide a comprehensive assessment of the present relative stability and of possible scenarios for adaptation;
Fleet management
18.Calls on the Commission to propose adapting the structural policy in order to facilitate the decarbonisation of the fishing industry and to improve safety and working conditions, notably by fully utilising the available gross tonnage within national capacity ceilings and excluding the ‘social and safety’ related tonnage from the calculation of the fishing capacity;
Regional Multiannual plans
19.Recognises the essential role of multiannual plans (MAPs) as main frameworks for regional fisheries management;
20.Calls on the Commission to propose increased flexibility in these plans so that they take into account socioeconomic considerations and changing conditions;
21.Stresses the need to improve the implementation of the ecosystem approach at regional level and the need for consistent fisheries management measures concerning stocks straddling over regions covered by several MAPs;
Governance
Organisation within the Commission
22.Strongly recommends, given the strategic importance of fisheries as a source of healthy and high-quality food, that this policy be given the recognition it deserves within the Commission and that the Commission services responsible be staffed with an adequate number of experts in fisheries;
Regionalisation and stakeholders’ involvement
23.Encourages Member States to widely use the regional cooperation tool in accordance with Article 18 of the CFP Basic Regulation;
24.Stresses the fundamental role of Advisory Councils (ACs) for stakeholder consultations;
25.Supports the current composition of the ACs, with a majority representation of socioeconomic operators as compared to other interest groups;
26.Highlights the importance of involving the ACs with the European Parliament’s work;
27.Deplores the insufficient monitoring of and transparency on how the AC’s advice is taken into account in decision-making; calls on the Commission and Member States to systematically and actively participate in the AC’s meetings and to better communicate on the value of their advice;
28.Considers that co-management with the ACs must be developed to foster a bottom-up approach;
Decisions based on science and impact assessments
29.Calls on the Commission to base all its political and legislative initiatives (including implementing acts that set restrictions on fisheries) on scientific, technical and economic advice (including fishers’ experience) and on prior impact assessments;
30.Considers that the ACs should be given the possibility to contribute to the Commission’s requests for advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) in order to foster closer collaboration between scientists and stakeholders;
31.Calls on the Commission to systematically inform the European Parliament about these requests;
The integration of fisheries into a wider policy context
32.Stresses the need to ensure that fisheries and aquaculture are given fair place in comparison with other sectors in policy design and in spatial planning;
33.Recalls that environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the CFP with a view to promoting sustainable development, in line with the TFEU;
34.Underlines that fisheries and environmental policy must be aligned, but that environmental objectives cannot prevail over the CFP objectives;
External dimension of the CFP
35.Calls on the Commission to promote the CFP as a policy model for ocean governance and to defend the EU fishing sector’s interests in Regional Fisheries Management Organisations and Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements, and more generally in international forums;
36.Calls on the Commission to ensure that the CFP objectives are fully integrated into the EU position in all international environmental forums, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) or Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), where questions relative to marine biological resources are discussed;
37.Considers that imported seafood products must be subject to high environmental and social standards, similar to those applied in the EU;
Outermost regions
38.Considers that the CFP does not sufficiently address the specific needs of the outermost regions;
39.Calls on the Commission to propose a programme of options specifically relating to remoteness and insularity (POSEI) for fisheries and aquaculture, similar to that of agriculture;
40.Stresses that EU and national support for the renewal of the artisanal fleets is of vital importance for these regions; calls on the Commission, in particular, to adapt its guidelines for the analysis of the balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities (COM(2014)0545) to the characteristics of the outermost regions;
41.Insists on the need to support selective fishing methods, such as anchored fish aggregating devices used by artisanal fleets in the outermost regions;
42.Stresses the need to provide the necessary resources to improve scientific knowledge of the outermost regions’ exclusive economic zones;
Climate change
43.Stresses that mitigation and adaptation are key in the CFP to address the climate change challenge;
44.Highlights the need for more resilient ecosystems and more resilient economic fishing sectors;
45.Encourages the Commission and Member States to increase human and financial resources to fisheries science related to climate change;
46.Calls on the Commission to design tools and funding opportunities for the sectors affected by climate change;
°
° °
47.Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission, and to the governments and parliaments of the Member States.
Explanatory statement 19 paragraphs
In 2009 the Commission published a Green Paper, with a vision of how the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) should look like in the future. This opened the debate for a reform, which was adopted in 2013.
The current Commission is due to present a report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the functioning of the CFP by 31 December 2022. It should evaluate the Common Fisheries Policy by 2022 to identify how to address issues not sufficiently covered in the current policy, such as the social dimension, climate adaptation and clean oceans, and reflect on its future development.
This draft report has the ambition to provide for political guidance on any future review of the CFP. If it does not provide all the answers, it poses some questions on the implementation of the current CFP, on whether the current CFP objectives and tools are still relevant to tackle current and future challenges and on whether certain aspects should be reformed, reviewed, adapted or improved.
The Commission has always had a healthy critical view of the policy, and this has been the main engine for policy change. The Commission should continue promoting policy improvement when and where necessary.
Due to the constraints with regard to the length of the report, it was not possible to deal with every single aspect of the CFP covered under the CFP basic regulation (EU) 1380/2013. A choice had to be made.
The report therefore primarily focuses on fish stock conservation and fisheries management, building also upon specific reports already adopted in the few past years on issues such as Maximum Sustainable Yield, the landing obligation, the implementation of article17 of the CFP or “Fishers for the future”. Technical measures are however not developed in consideration of its rather recent new legislative framework.
The report does not cover aquaculture (which has just been the subject of a specific resolution by the European Parliament) nor marketing and processing of fisheries and aquaculture products (under the framework of a specific regulation adopted in parallel the Basic regulation). It does not address either other key dimensions, such as the structural pillar of the CFP (under the FEAMP regulation), control (currently under inter-institutional negotiations) or the effects of Brexit on EU fisheries in the North-East Atlantic (also dealt with in a recent resolution).
Position of the rapporteur
Without entering in specific measures that need to be reviewed, the future CFP needs a paradigm shift from rigid and unrealistic targets to pragmatic and achievable objectives.
In the course of the last decade (2010-2020) we have observed a radical change from a complete lack of clearly defined objectives for fisheries management to rigid “political” targets set hastily in 2013 (year of the last CFP reform), conscious that nobody had at that time all the answers to the questions about their effects and practical implementation and letting the experience test their ability to bring results or not. The trouble is that still today, not only the targets agreed back in 2013 are not attained within the deadlines set, but we discover that some are impossible to attain and others are extremely difficult to put in practice.
Scientists recognise that having all fish stocks in a marine ecosystem exploited at Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), which we have set as a target by 2020, is practically impossible. All stocks, especially in a fishery where various species are caught, cannot be fished at MSY levels simultaneously. Also the target to implement the obligation to land all catches by 2019, while it sounds simple as a concept, still creates huge difficulties today. The MSY concept should be implemented in light of the practical reality and in consideration of the socio-economic, proportionality and food security dimensions.
The result is mistrust by fishers vis-a-vis to politicians, because measures adopted are unfit and lack solid scientific basis, mistrust by the society, which considers that the EU has failed to deliver what had been agreed, but also indignation vis-a-vis to fishers because they are seen as non-complying with the law.
The EU credibility is put into question. There is a need for realistic and achievable objectives. Fishers need to be taken on board. In the future CFP, the image of the noble and difficult metier of fishers – especially of EU fishers – providing consumers with healthy, high quality and sustainable food, needs to be re-established and promoted.
The current CFP targets are too much focused on environmental considerations. While nobody doubts that healthy fishing stocks and the protection of biodiversity is a conditio sine qua non for an economically viable fishing sector, one should not lose sight of the fact that the objective of the CFP is not simply to have more abundant fishery resources, or fewer overexploited ones, but also – or primarily – to achieve maximum sustainable levels of production of seafood, in order to ensure food security and positive social and economic returns to fishers and coastal communities. Therefore, fisheries and environmental policy must be aligned, but environmental objectives cannot prevail over those of the CFP.
Good governance, early consultation and effective involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making progress, are basic ingredients for a successful policy.
In this context, ensuring a level playing field with certain foreign fleets with low social and environmental standards that fish at the same zones with EU operators and commercialising their products at the EU market is fundamental for the competitiveness of the EU fleets and aquaculture producers.
In parallel, we must ensure that the EU defends the interests of its fishing sectors at global level in the context of its action on oceans’ governance. Defending and promoting the EU sustainability model is perfectly compatible and should go hand in hand with the defence of the EU sectors’ interests.
The EU fisheries and aquaculture sectors and the whole seafood value chain are strategic actors, for their societal role of providing high quality healthy food to consumers. We need to give them the place they deserve and put them more generally high in the EU political agenda.
Finally, outermost regions have specific constraints and specific needs as provided for in article 349 TFEU. The CFP ought to take account of their specific characteristics and needs and adapt to these.