Fish stocks in the Mediterranean could soon be depleted unless there were drastic cuts in the European fishing fleet, EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg warned yesterday as he launched a Green Paper in Brussels.
"Nine out of 10 fish stocks in Europe are exploited beyond their capacity to regenerate," he warned. "If nothing happens we will soon end up without any fish to fish for," he told a press conference.
The Green Paper analyses fisheries policy today and explains why some problems persist despite the progress made since the reform of 2002.
"One of the main problems is the depleted state of European fish stocks: 88 per cent of stocks are overfished (against a global average of 25 per cent) and 30 per cent are outside safe biological limits, meaning they cannot reproduce at normal rate because the parenting population is too depleted." Yet, European fleets keep fishing two to three times more than what fish stocks can sustain, the document says.
"This is mostly as a result of fleet overcapacity. Such overcapacity is in fact economically inefficient because not only does it deplete stocks but it also constantly drives the industry's profits down. Solutions need to be found to restore the worst-off stocks and at the same time guarantee that fish can continue to be a reliable source of revenue for fishermen".
However, when asked, Dr Borg refused to put an overall figure on the fishing capacity cuts required, saying it varied from one area or species to another. He said cod, hake and bluefin tuna - the latter being a lucrative resource for the Maltese fishing industry - stocks appeared to be among the most threatened.
The report admits that the current common fisheries policy, last overhauled in 2002, "has not worked well enough" to prevent the problems seen now. One remedy the Commission would like EU member states to consider is to liberalise the quota system to encourage sustainable fishing. Under the current system, EU nations haggle at the end of each year on how to share fishing quotas among themselves that are then distributed among their national fishing fleets.
Brussels is leaning towards a system already used in Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Iceland whereby governments hand out individual and transferable quotas to fishermen on a one-off basis. These can then be bought and sold on the private market.
Some EU nations including Denmark and The Netherlands are in favour of the tradeable quotas scheme. However others, notably France, oppose the idea of turning fisheries into another vehicle for the speculators.
Dr Borg said the period of reflection would last until the end of the year, to be followed by the EU Executive drawing up concrete measures.