Aaron McLoughlin

 A Greek Revolutionary Who Delivered Change

Commissioner Damanaki acheived what many people, including me, thought was not possible. She pulled off a real reform of Europe’s Common Fisheries Policy. She ignored her critics, whether they were in DG MARE who opposed tooth and nail the discards ban, Commissioner Barnier whose services waterted down DG MARE’s proposal at last minute in Inter-Service Consultation. She bypassed many members of the fisheries committee and outplayed too many in industry who opposed the spirit of reform.

What’s Been Agreed

Reading the new Basic Regulation the scale of the reform is remarkable.

Regionalistion

Regionalisation was only dear to the hearts of the Sweden and UK. It was vocally championed by Scotland, and this led many many Member States to see it as a move to re-nationalise fisheries, and out of principle oppose it.

Only Richard Benyon’s,  the UK Fisheries Minister, urbane and active negotiation style won over the many doubting Member States to the case for devolved fisheries management. And, I say this as a member of a Political Party different from Mr Benyon.

The key section is in Article 17 that allows:

• Member States to co-operate with each other and other third countries.
• An appeal procedure is established if a Member State does not agree.
• Coordination with scientific bodies is required

What is remarkable is that issue ever sought the light of day. It is a legally ingenious provision, one I suspect that at least the Commission’s own legal service have had severe reservations about.

How Many Fish In the Sea

 A lot of people get very focused on three letter: MSY.

MSY means Maximum Sustainable Yield and many hours were spent discussing this in the Parliament and the Council.

Now, making sure there are plenty of fish in the sea to reproduce at healthy levels makes sense to me. But, then it all gets a bit complicated with people converting into science speak, and talking about F MSY, B MSY and even some talking about other variations.

Interestingly, it becomes clear we don’t know too well how many fish there are in the sea. And, often the guestimates from organisations like ICES are well nothing more than well intentioned guestimates, but with margins of error that would makes your eyes water.

What Was Agreed

The Parliament, Council and Commission finally agreed to the following:
‘

‘The Common Fisheries Policy shall apply the precautionary approach to fisheries management, and shall aim to ensure that exploitation of living marine biological resources restores and maintains populations of harvested species above levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yield. This exploitation rate shall be achieved by 2015, where possible, and by 2020 for all stocks at the latest.

In order to reach this objective of progressively restoring and maintaining populations of fish stocks above biomass levels capable of producing maximum sustainable yield, the maximum sustainable yield exploitation rate shall be achieved by 2015 where possible and on a progressive, incremental basis at the latest by 2020 for all stocks.’

They even went and provided a definition for MSY:

5(6): Definition:  ‘maximum sustainable yield’ means the highest theoretical equilibrium yield that can be continuously taken on average from a stock under existing average environmental conditions without affecting significantly the reproduction process’

Now, experience seems to show if you follow plans to reach these levels there will be an incredibly lot more fish in the sea by the end of this decade. Indeed, we’ll likely have to start dealing with new problems like too many too big cod in the North Sea.

Discards Ban

Hugh’s Fish Fight brought to the UK public’s attention the tragi-comedy of fish discarding.  The issue had been on the fisheries agenda for many years. Nothing much had been done about and discards of cod in the North Sea and elsewhere continued at madeningly amounts.

Channeling the Norwegians

The throwing over board dead fish annoyed the public. It annoyed our Norwegian neighbours who had banned the practice for years and kept asking the EU to copy them. We kept refusing to act.  As good Norwegians they kept trying to explain to the EU that  discard bans works to restore socks to profitablity and sustainability. Indeed, the final text looks like it has been written by the sons of Odin themselves.

Counting What’s Landed

If you look to Article 15 you will see the shift from a catch quota to a landing quota. A mandatory landing requirement and counted against quota is established.

Ambitious But Workable Deadlines

The deadlines are:

1st January2015

(a)        the latest from 1 January 2015:

-       small pelagic fisheries i.e. fisheries for mackerel, herring, horse mackerel, blue whiting, boarfish, anchovy, argentine, sardine, sprat; large pelagic fisheries i.e. fisheries for bluefin tuna, swordfish, albacore tuna, bigeye tuna, blue and white marlin;

-       fisheries for industrial purposes i.a. fisheries for capelin, sandeel and Norway pout;

-       salmon in the Baltic Sea.

At the latest from 1 January 2015  for species defining the fisheries and not later than 1 January 2017 for all other species in fisheries in Union waters of the Baltic Sea for species subject to catch limits other than those covered by point (a).

1st January 2016

 At the latest from 1 January 2016 for species defining the fisheries and not later than 1 January 2019 for all other species in:

-            (i) The North Sea

-             fisheries for cod, haddock, whiting, saithe;

-             fisheries for Norway lobster;

-             fisheries for common sole and plaice;

-             fisheries for hake;

-             fisheries for Northern prawn;

-             (ii) North Western waters

-             fisheries for cod, haddock, whiting, saithe;

-             fisheries for Norway lobster;

-             fisheries for common sole and plaice;

-             fisheries for hake;

-             (iii) South Western waters

-             fisheries for Norway lobster;

-             fisheries for common sole and plaice;

-             fisheries for hake;

-         (iv)      other fisheries for species subject to catch limits.

1st January 2017

At the latest from 1 January 2017 for species defining the fisheries and not later than 1 January 2019 for all other species in fisheries not covered by paragraph 1(a) in the Mediterranean, in the Black Sea and in all other Union waters and in non-Union waters not subject to third countries’ sovereignty or jurisdiction.

Member States Can Go Further 

Provision is even made to all  Member States to extend landing obligation to other species.

When is A Discard Ban A Discard Ban?

The EU is not stopping the discarding of all fish. It is cutting the discarding by a huge amount.

Indeed,  provisions is made for `De-minmis exemptions of up to 5% of total annual catches of all species`.  This means that some fish will continued to be discarded but at levels massively lower than the levels thrown overboard today.

Checking It Is Working

 The key requirement is:

‘All catches subject to catch limits, and in the Mediterranean also catches subject to minimum landing sizes as defined in the Annex to Regulation (EC) No. 1967/2006, caught during fishing activities in Union waters or by Union fishing vessels outside Union waters in waters not subject to third countries’ sovereignty or jurisdiction, in the fisheries and geographical areas listed below shall be brought and retained on board the fishing vessels, recorded, landed, and counted against the quotas where applicable (Article 15(1)’.

This requires the ‘recording’ of the fish caught. Now, how this recording is to be done is detailed further along in Article 15.

‘Member States shall ensure detailed and accurate documentation of all fishing  trips and adequate capacity and means for the purpose of monitoring compliance with the obligation to land all catches, inter alia such means as observers, CCTV and other. In doing so, Member States shall respect the principle of efficiency and proportionality (Article 15(8)’.

This requires Member States to ensure detailed and accurate documented fisheries.  It leaves a number of options on how this can be done, via on-board observers, CCTV or some new technology that may come on stream to help ensure the fully documented fisheries.

Now, there are some caveats, and Member States may opt for alternative solutions for the under 12 metre fleet. However, exemptions in EU Law are always interpreted narrowly, and anyone who is looking to use this exempt the over 15 metre fleet will likely find themselves loosing in the European Court.

Non Compliance by Operators

Now, the issue does come up what happens if some parts of the fleet choose to ignore these provisions. Of course, the matters of non-compliance are a matter for the Member State to deal with.

The Regulations speaks of Member States adopting measures  including the “the establishment of effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions” (Article  46 (2a).

There are obvious sanctions that a Member State could deploy if operators break the law. These can include the removal of the of fishing license or fines. And, as in most countries the quota is held by the government, there may be an option to withdraw the quota from operators.

Non-Compliance by Governments

The Regulation also spells out clear duties on the Member States and consquences for noncompliance (e.g. see Article 50).

TFCs – A Step Too Far

One element from the reform that was gutted early on was the mandatory use of Transferable Fishing Quotas. This was killed off by an odd alliance of NGOs, small and large scale fishing fleet, and governments.

Some governments wanted it. Spain was chief among them. The UK government saw how effective the schemes had been in other countries, but did not want them imposed on. Denmark did not fight the issue because they already have ITQs and think they work very well.

There were attempts to kill the use of TFCs off all together, but that fortunately failed.

For countries who use TFCs they will need to “establish and maintain a register of transferable fishing concessions” (Article 27). This won’t be a major problem. If you can read Danish they have the details all on line.

I need to re-read the text to see if the agreement still allows the antiquated practice iin many countries of quota being held secretly by the government or industry consortium. The irony seems to be that in some countries, whilst the government hold the legal title to the quota they are not clear who actually is using it.

Europe Can Change

I think the biggest lesson from the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy is that Europe can adapt and change.

When David Cameroon raised in his speech about about Britain’s future in Europe at the start of the year he raised the issue of fisheries policy. He raised fisheries policy up the agenda of many capitals political agenda. Chancellor Merkel, from a historic fisheries constituency, may well have decided that this is an issue to show the public that Europe can adapt and change for the better.  Germany’s late burst of activity to bring about reform shows to those who doubt Europe’s ability to reform,  that it can do.

Indeed, many countries have taken brave steps. Simon Coveney proved many wrong when he pushed through a reform during the Irish Presidency. Ireland has traditionally been seen in the camp of France, Spain, Portugal and Italy on fisheries. Simon Coveney  shows us that there some politicians in Europe who are prepared to fight for the greater good.

I am sure one the story about how the reform was reached was delivered at 3:30 on a Thursday morning. But, I am sure that at the centre of that story will be a brave Greek politican, Maria Damanaki, who had a rare mix of vision, stubbornness and stamina to bring about a real reform to Europe’s fisheries policy.

The UK’s House of Lords caught up with the UK Fisheries Minister, Richard Benyon MP, on 5 June, to talk about the deal reached a few days earlier.

Richard Benyon has been a champion of reform. He’s pushed the fight forward, often in a way that seemed more progressive than the ministry would have opted for.

Fishing has fortunately been a bi-partisan issue.

Wins

Richard Benyon noted the wins from the reform, in particular:

• A legally binding commitment to fish sustainably
• Regionalisation
• Discard Ban
• Reduce the footprint of Europe’s fleet abroad

Losses

However he recognized that not everything that could be done had been done.

• ITQs
• Fleet capacity reduction

The exchange with British Peers is informed and worth listening to.

You can watch the exchange

http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=13237

There are only a few things that grown adults can be any good at doing in the early hours of a Thursday morning. And, law making is not one of them.

3:30 am – Time to Agree

On Thursday 30 May  at 3:30 am a deal was struck on the reform of Europe’s Fishing Policy. The exact final agreement is being produced. The known terms are available from the excellent CFP Reform Watch.

Looking Good Next Morning

Those who had brought together the deal displayed herculean strength to pull themselves out of their slumber and attend a press conference the next morning.

Notice: © European Union, 2013 – EP.

Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/ep-live/en/other-events/video?event=20130530-1000-SPECIAL-UNKN

Change We Can

This morning around 3:30 am politicians in Europe struck a deal to reform Europe’s fisheries.

It’s a large step forward. Some will say it is not perfect, but nothing ever made of human hands, let alone from the hands of politicians, ever is. But, it is a major step forward.

The FT View

Joshua  Chaffin’s piece in today’s FT is well worth reading:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05c56eba-c8fa-11e2-bb56-00144feab7de.html

EU agrees to end decades of overfishing

By Joshua Chaffin in Brussels

©Bloomberg

European fleets will have to end overfishing by the end of the decade and substantially abandon the practice of discarding after the EU agreed a sweeping overhaul of its troubled fisheries policy.

The agreement – between representatives from the European Commission, the parliament and member states – came shortly after 3am on Thursday morning following an all-night bargaining session that was, itself, preceded by more than a year of negotiations.

Maria Damanaki, the fisheries commissioner, called the reform a “historical step for all those involved in fisheries”, saying: “We are going to change radically the way we fish in the future.”

The centrepiece of the reform is a requirement that all EU stocks be fished at sustainable levels by 2020, with most required to meet that standard in 2015.

That means catch limits must be based on scientific recommendations about the maximum number of fish that can be harvested without damaging a stock’s ability to replenish itself.

The reform will also reduce the ruinous practice of discarding, in which fish are thrown overboard at sea so that fleets can return to shore with only the most valuable catch.

Discards will be limited in the coming years to no more than 5 per cent of the total catch, with member states required to seek special permission from the commission.

The UK, in particular, has argued that some discards must be tolerated because certain species swim together and cannot be easily separated.

The EU is the world’s biggest consumer of fish. Yet about two-thirds of its stocks are currently overfished, according to the commission. In the Mediterranean, the figure is more than 80 per cent.

European politicians have for years routinely ignored scientific advice while providing subsidies to underwrite ever-larger fleets.

The common fisheries policy’s quota system and Byzantine rules has been blamed for creating perverse, unintended consequences while rankling local authorities by concentrating decision-making powers in Brussels.

“We have learnt lessons from the existing common fisheries policy, which in some areas has failed,” said Simon Coveney, Ireland’s fisheries minister, who helped to shepherd through the final deal.

The agreement, which must be rubber-stamped by the full parliament and member states, will give more authority to local authorities to manage fisheries. It also seeks to reward low-impact, environmentally-sound fishermen by urging national governments to grant them bigger shares of annual quotas.

Saskia Richartz, Greenpeace’s fisheries policy director, said: “For decades in Europe, fishing has been a story of decline, with severe overexploitation of fish stocks and small-scale fishermen squeezed out of business by a minority of profiteering fishing barons. The deal that is emerging today is good news.”

Ms Richartz also complained that the agreement – while it would curb overfishing – did not contain binding deadlines to rebuild damaged stocks and exempted some species from the discarding restrictions. “It is disappointing,” she said.

Uta Bellion, a spokesman for the Pew environmental trust, said the parties had “made history” with the agreement. “They agreed to rebuild fish stocks, set a legally binding target to end overfishing, and committed to reducing by catch and discarding. This is a well-deserved success for Commissioner Maria Damanaki, and a testament to her vision.”

Hopefully, we are in to our last week on the reform of the rules that govern Europe’s fishing industry.

Trawling for Soviet Era Subsidies

Trundling behind them is the reform of how Europe gives subsidies to this industry. The amount of taxpayers money being given out to a very few boats is staggering. Conservative guestimates are that the government spends more money in control, enforcement, and subsidies than the industry brings in.

But, the bizzaire justifications for taxpayers to be forced to spend their hard earned money on others continues to this day.

Give Me Your Money

The strangest one is that old large vessels should be paid by taxpayers to modernise their boats. I’ve got no problem that a private individual should spend his own hard earned income to modernise his aging vessel. I think it is wrong that any boat owner get his political friends to pass laws that force taxpayers to pay for boats to be modernised at taxpayers expense.

Europe’s Conservatives – Corporate Sugar Daddies

Now, the irony is that French conservatives, like Alain Cadec, are behind these corporate welfare schemes. That he comes from Brittany, an area dominated by large and old fishing vessels is just a co-inidence.

Now, the strange thing is that many old vessels (large and small) are modernised at the owners expense. Yes, there really is industry happening in europe that works at a profit and is not bankrolled by Government.

A Free Market Model

Here is just one example of a boat operating today that has been upgraded without subsidies. It escaped the East German Soviet model and we should not allow that to come back.