Spaans voorzitterschap maakt duurzame visserij tot speerpunt (en)

The Spanish Minister of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, Elena Espinosa, lobbied this Thursday for the conservation of fisheries resources and the integration of maritime and environmental policies in order to achieve a sustainable level of use.

In her third appearance at the European Parliament, this time before the Committee on Fisheries, the Minister emphasised the importance of a new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which will be "open and participatory" she said, and whose reform process "is making good progress”.

The new CFP, she added, will include the definitive review of the principle of relative stability and the management policy based on Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and quotas.

Moreover, Ms Espinosa insisted that now is the time to start discussing the reform of the common organisation of markets, which is now outdated with regard to fish and aquaculture products.

In addition, she stressed the need to have multiyear plans in place for certain fish stocks:

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  a long-term plan for anchovies after the lifting of the ban last December.
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  a multiyear plan to manage the western horse mackerel population which, according to Espinosa, could be the "first joint agreement" between the Council and the European Parliament, as their "positions are very close”.
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  a long-term project for northern hake, whose stocks have stabilised thanks to a recovery plan that will be submitted for scientific review in March.

Europe is the biggest consumer of fish in the world. With consumers in mind, the Spanish Minister highlighted the importance of establishing an ecological labelling system so that the public can be informed about whether it was caught using sustainable fishing practices or not, which would give the product added value.

In addition to these priorities, the Minister set out other proposals of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, such as a catch documentation system for tuna and modifying the access requirements for deep-sea species, the regulation for which was passed in 2002.

She mentioned the international fishing agreements of the EU fleet in third-country waters. The EU plans to sign a convention with Chile on swordfish in the southeast Pacific. The EU also collaborates with Micronesia, São Tomé and Príncipe and the Solomon Islands in the area of fishing.

With regard to the agreement signed with Morocco, the Minister reported that a joint EU-Morocco commission will meet in Rabat next week to discuss issues of supervising and monitoring the agreement.

Espinosa added the environmental and human or social aspects to the economic aspect of fishing, as sustainable catches are the means of guaranteeing the conservation of resources and the ecosystem, in addition to “a decent level of income for fishermen”.

She defended the CFP as one of the "historical common policies", as it was one of the first that the EU reached an agreement on, in a joint effort to integrate all the differences and unique regional features and "be united under one big umbrella”.

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