Overfishing in the EU

Subsidies from the European Union designed to tackle overfishing have backfired and instead helped reduce already dwindling fish stocks, a new report by Pew Environment Group claims.

The non governmental organization says that subsidies to the tune of 4.9 billion euros ($6.6 billion) allocated by the EU to member states between 2000 and 2006 were misused.

Pew claims 29 percent of the EU handouts went to measures that encourage overfishing, such as modernizing fleets and building new vessels, money that would be better spent in other areas.

"One of them would be better control of enforcement. Currently illegal fishing is a huge problem in European waters," Markus Knigge, policy and research director at Pew Environment Group, told Deutsche Welle.

"Another issue is research, which needs to be supported. Not all fish stocks are properly assessed, so it is hard to give advice sometimes on how much fish can be taken out of the sea," he added.

Industry not convinced

The subsidies, originally introduced in the 1970s to boost fish production by supporting investment in larger, more efficient fleets, have led to overcapacity across the bloc, thus putting pressure on fish stocks.

The report says nearly 90 percent of fish stocks are overfished in the EU, a figure the fishing industry doubts is based on comprehensive assessments.

Industry associations also point out that reducing fleets and capacity must be socially viable and that the burden cannot be placed on the fishing industry alone, as there are other industries operating in the water that hinder fishermen's work.

"Apart from the Common Fisheries Policy of the EU, we would like to see other sectors like, for example, wind farm operators and oil and gas explorers taken into account too," Guy Vernaene, secretary general of the pan-European fishing industry body Europeche, told Deutsche Welle.

With regard to reducing capacity, Vernaene would like to see "a centrally managed EU scrapping fund," for fisheries to tap into on a voluntary basis, to ease the economic burden in an industry that has been in decline for years.

The EU's Common Fisheries Policy was introduced in 2002 to regulate sustainable fishing and is currently under review.

German concerns

Germany, unlike Spain, France or the UK, does not have a huge fishing industry, but it is nevertheless an important player as one of Europe's biggest processors of fish, thus relying on a healthy fishing industry.

Most fisheries in Germany do not get any handouts from the EU, according to the German Fisheries Association.

"It is hard to see why some still think that subsidies can encourage overfishing," the head of the organization, Peter Breckling, told Deutsche Welle.

"What is being handed out in Europe simply is not enough to have such an impact on fish stocks," he said.

Breckling and Vernaene are mostly worried about the impact of a declining industry on workers and tourism.

"It simply is not that easy to retrain people, it is not just a case of asking a fisherman to run a pizzeria instead," Vernaene told Deutsche Welle.

It is a concern that Knigge from Pew shares, but he insists that overfishing is a huge issue and needs to be solved by, for example, boosting efforts to find alternative jobs for fishermen.

The European Commission is in the process of assessing member states' positions on proposals to reform its Common Fisheries Policy and hopes to be able to present concrete proposals next year.

Author: Nicole Goebel

Editor: Susan Houlton