LIVELY DEBATE AT PESCA CONFERENCE
A report from Gussie Angus
THE Common Fisheries Policy should be reformed according to ecological, socio-economic and environmental factors. There should be proper control without excessive bureaucracy and the way of life of fisheries-dependent coastal areas must not be jeopardised. So said Mr Tzoumacas, the Greek Agriculture Minister in the opening speech of last month’s PESCA conference called to consider the future of the fisheries structural policy, and it was a sentiment echoed by many of the subsequent speakers at the forum.
Just like apple pie and motherhood, nobody took exception to the theme, but everyone was hazy on the precise route to this sustainable CFP Nirvana. No arguments either that fish stocks just about everywhere are under threat — plenty on the causes and the cure. Several references were made to the failure of some member states to square their interpretation of sustainability with hard scientific fact.
There were re-runs of the many of the familiar arguments: Is engine size a reliable indicator of vessel catching capacity? How do you prevent decommissioning disproportionately affecting remote and fisheries- dependent communities where population stability is crucial to survival? Do grants for modernisation, leading to more efficient catching, conflict with policies of effort limitation? How best to achieve balance between the fleet and the stocks? What about state fleets? Should EU funds be used to subsidise and support semipublic fishing and fish processing companies? And so it went on with predictably more questions than answers.
Days at sea
Sadly, however, nobody had anything new or fresh to say on effort limitation — days at sea is emerging as the common currency despite the contrary reasoned and well rehearsed arguments of seasoned industry cognoscenti — HELP! Most speakers understandably defended their national positions and interests with Commission representatives restricting their contributions to facts and guided tours through the mosaic of regulations, programme initiatives, funds, agencies and future plans - look out for Agenda 2000 by the way.
Agenda 2000 is one of the new EU policy engines which will drive EU structural funding effort in the new millennium. Mr Parres, a member of the Advisory Committee for Fishenes for the EC, spoke of the current review of the MAGP with its attendant complex funding arrangements. Member states currently interpret and implement these regulations to suit themselves and arbitrarily apply decommissioning rules. He warned that, with the enlargement of the Community, not only is the policy funding initiative no longer going to be fish specific, the level of support for individual members will decrease. Future support for processors is likely to be on the basis of market tested feasibility.
Back to PESCA, the fund intended to provide for diversification within the European fisheries industry which has, by all accounts, failed to achieve that principal objective. Perhaps the most succinct and pertinent comments on PESCA came from the UK MAFF representative who described both PESCA & FIFG as "too complex" and access to both as time consuming and overly bureaucratic with the risk of incoherence. Heartening to hear this civil servant recommend that funding programmes be reduced from the present thirty to three; that regional and national interests should be quickly reconciled and that there should be a single set of rules for processing and marketing.
An interesting suggestion on the decommissioning argument from the UK — buy back the licences instead and combine that strategy with a well-funded early retirement package for fishermen.
An opportunity missed
Sadly our representative had to confirm that our industry had been unable to fully exploit PESCA as the UK's match funding could not be divorced from the general public expenditure guidelines - talk about missed opportunity Such a pity the UK's policy and thinking on PESCA has been so constipated. Arguably a more imaginative approach to this initiative could have resulted in a net gain to the exchequer as well as going some way towards achieving some of the policy objectives of this troubled industry.
The telling point in the conference came when a commission representative confirmed that Spain had received 28% of all available PESCA funds, Italy 15% and France 10%. UK and the rest received less than 6%. The Spanish government had clearly seized the PESCA initiative and backed it with their own funds, thereby opening up opportunities closed to their EU partners — I wonder if the Sunbeam was built in a PESCA-supported shipyard.
Mrs Fragas, the Spanish President of the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee, who chaired the first conference session, is clearly a champion of her country's fisheries industry and looks out for its interests with a fierce determination — pity she isn't British.
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