Fleets face death sentence from Fischler proposals, Europêche warns

Date: 30/05/02

By David Cronin

FRANZ Fischler may have imposed a 'death sentence' on several fleets, warns the group representing Europe's fishing industry.

Europêche, the Association of National Fishing Organisations in the EU, said his proposals were presented 'in a context which appears to professionals to be painted in exaggeratedly sombre colours'.

This could 'negatively affect the general image of the sector and severely damage the interests of those involved in it,' said Alain Parrès, the organisation's president.

Under Fischler's plan about 8,600 vessels from the Union's 100,000-strong fleet would be decommissioned, which could make 28,000 people across the EU unemployed.

'This will inevitably represent a severe blow to companies, crews and the socio-economic fabric of coastal regions,' added Parrès. 'In addition, all public aid would be stopped and the amounts available from the various [European] Community structural funds would be devoted solely to the scrapping of boats, the disbanding of crews and their retraining for other jobs.

'Applied literally and pretty brutally, these provisions could represent the death sentence for many fleets in the EU member states.'

The World Wildlife Fund, however, urged member states opposed to the reform to take a 'long, cool and rational' look at the package.

Its director, Karl Wagner, said: 'The best news is that the Commission recognises there is a problem with Europe's hugely over-capacity fishing fleet. In short, there are too many boats chasing too few fish and substantial subsidies courtesy of the European taxpayer.'

He added: 'Despite intense pressure from some countries, the Commission has proposed one reform that ought to be welcomed - to abolish the absurdly contradictory system of spending taxpayer's money on building and modernising boats while at the same time paying for boats to be scrapped. The truth is that the Commission is not proposing to cut €one worth of subsidies.

There will be short-term pain, but the benefit should be long-term gain, including a healthy, sustainable fishing industry. As the WWF has been saying for months: 'stop overfishing or fishing will be over.''

Europêche, the Association of National Fishing Organisations in the EU, has criticised Franz Fischler's proposed reform of the European Union's fishing fleet.

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/fisheries/reform/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/comm/fisheries/reform/index_en.htm

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