Progress in EU Fisheries Policies

Colorado Environmental Law Journal Colorado Environmental Law Journal

Volume 9 Number 3 1997 Yearbook

Progress in EU Fisheries Policies Progress in EU Fisheries Policies

Sara Galley

Article 11

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VI. PROGRESS IN EU FISHERIES POLICIES

For quite some time now, the European Union (EU) has received considerable criticism for its fisheries policies, particularly for its failure to adequately protect the overexploited stocks of a number of important food fish species.' In fact, the inadequacy of EU stock protection in the North Sea was a major factor cited in Norway's decision to decline EU membership.2 However, a number of important steps toward protecting fisheries were taken in 1997, and while environmentalists and some countries continue to insist that more is needed, these recent events were a significant move in the right direction.

A landmark conference took place in Bergen, Norway, in March 1997, at which the EU and the North Sea states agreed upon a set of recommendations for saving overfished North Sea stocks such as mackerel, cod, and herring.' Environmentalists criticized the results as not being concrete and specific enough, particularly after EU Fisheries Commissioner Emma Bonino insisted that the conference not formally agree to methods for protecting fish stocks.4 Bonino was heavily criticized by Norway; Norwegian Fisheries Minister Karl Schjott-Pedersen said that he "would prefer to see specific timetables and conclusions."5 Although the final result of this meeting was only a nonbinding document, the conference was extremely significant in part because it was the first time these two groups met to formally address the stock exploitation issue, and because it is finally being considered as both a fisheries problem and an environmental concern.6

Land and Resource Management

This new commitment to addressing overexploitation was tested in April 1997, when the EU Council of Fisheries Ministers decided on fleet size reductions through the year 2002.7 The new Multi-Annual Guidance Plan (MAGP IV) calls for decreases of up to thirty percent in the fishing of some stocks, to be achieved through a combination of capacity and activity reductions Although both France and the United Kingdom protested this plan,9 it was adopted by the EU Commission in June," and the member states' individual implementation plans were approved in December." One of the chief criticisms of the plan, cited by both France and the fishermen's organization Europeche, was that while the fleet reductions continued through 2002, funding to alleviate the problems caused by the reductions was approved only through 2000.2

The fisheries ministers also approved, in October, a series of new technical requirements. These included minimum mesh sizes for different regions of the EU, which are intended to protect juvenile fish;'3 the harvesting of juvenile fish, which are often too small to be commercially valuable and which are thrown back dead, is one of the major threats to the recovery of threatened stocks. Both the fleet reductions and the new technical measures are concrete steps toward the protection and recovery of those stocks, which exhibits the EU's supposed new commitment to sustainable fishing. However, one of the more critical measures affecting the fishing stocks is the quota system. This system involves a quota of total allowable catches (TACs), which are set by the European Commission, with scientific guidance from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Although the Commission claims to "try to follow the

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ICES advice scrupulously,"'" the ICES did not recommend increases in any of the quotas. In many of the more depleted stocks, the cuts recommended by the ICES were greater than those proposed by the Commission.5 The European Commission, however, set the TACs at a markedly higher level for many stocks for 1998.16 Thus, to a certain extent, it appears that the EU is still letting political pressures defeat conservation measures.

The EU did make some progress toward future reform. In anticipation of the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy in 2002, the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee adopted a report in September proposing a number of changes, including the setting of TACs by scientists rather than EU fisheries ministers, and proposing that TACs be set for multiple years instead of annually." Finally, in December, Commissioner Bonino presented a "Communication... intended to launch a comprehensive debate on the future of [the fisheries] market, not only within the European institutions and Member States, but also within the sector as a whole, to provide the requisite transparency and ensure that the debate is as informed as possible."' This newer, more holistic approach is one of the more positive changes seen recently. It marks policymakers' new attitude of taking the problems of sustaining fish stocks seriously.

Sara Galley

--- FOOTNOTES ---

Part of the Environmental Law Commons

1. According to the latest scientific reports, up to 60% of the available cod stocks in the North Sea are being fished each year, bringing the stocks to the brink of collapse. At the current fishing rates, only 4% of one-year-old fish will reach an age old enouth to reproduce. See Alison Maitland, Stocks of North Sea Cod "Are Close to Collapse, "FIN. TIMES, Feb. 6, 1997, at 18, available in 1997 WL 3771793. Other food fish stocks are in similarly dire straits.

2. See Karen DaPonte, 8 GEO. INT'L ENVTL. L. REV. 504, 504-05 (1996) (reviewing H. Gwilliam & G. Lutgen, Norway and the European Union: Fishingfor Compliments, 24 ENVTL. POL'Y & L. 5 (1994), a Norwegian publication). Norway has taken a number of steps to protect the cod stocks in the waters it fishes, such as forbidding the fishing of capelin (cod's primary prey) and providing payments to fishermen prevented from fishing. See Fishing the Sea Dry, DAILY TELEGRAPH (London), May 26, 1997, at 21, available in 1997 WL 2312353.

3. See Rolf Soderlind, EU, North Sea States Try to Save Fish Stocks, Reuters Eur. Community Rep., Mar. 14, 1997, available in LEXIS, Europe Library, Reuec File; Paul Brown, Long Trawl to Peace, GUARDIAN (London), Mar. 19, 1997, at 4, available in 1997 WL 2371485.

4. See Paul Brown, EU Official Pours Cold Water on Plan to Save Fish Stocks,

GUARDIAN (London), Mar. 14, 1997, at 2, available in 1997 WL 2370659.

5. Id. 6. See Soderlind, supra note 3.

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7. See Fisheries Council: Ministries Agree Five-Year Plan to Save Fish Stocks,

EUR. REP., Apr. 16, 1997, available in 1997 WL 8516468.

8. See id. Fleet reduction refers to reducing the number of fishing boats, and activ-

ity reduction is reducing the number of hours the boats spend at sea fishing. See Fisheries: Fleet-Cutting Plans Adopted, EUR. REP., Dec. 20, 1997, available in 1997 WL 13048433. 9. See Fisheries: Fleet-Cutting Plans Adopted, supra note 8. France's objection was to the extension of the plan from three years to five, which occurred shortly before the meeting. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, was opposed to any plan that did not address the problem of "quota-hopping," a practice whereby fishermen of one country register their boats in another country to take part of its quota.

10. See EU Adopts Five-Year Plan to Save Fish Stocks, EUR. REP., July 2, 1997,

available in 1997 WL 8517820.

11. See Fisheries: Fleet-Cutting Plans Adopted, supra note 8. The implementation plans for Germany, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, and the United Kingdom include a combination of fleet capacity reduction and activity reduction. The plans for the other EU countries are based solely on fleet capacity reduction.

12. See Europeche Says Fishing Fleet-Cutting Plan Too Demanding, EUR. REP.,

Apr. 23, 1997, available in 1997 WL 8516617.

13. See Fisheries Council: Ministers Agree [On] Conservation Measures, EUR.

REP., Nov. 1, 1997, available in 1997 WL 13047633.

14. Commission Proposes More Generous TACs and Quotas for 1998, EUR. REP.,

Dec. 13, 1997, available in 1997 WL 13048370.

15. See id. 16. See Commission Proposes More Generous TACs and Quotasfor 1998, supra note 14; Fisheries: EU Agrees Joint Stock TACs and Quotas with Norway, EUR. REP., Dec. 6, 1997, available in 1997 WL 13048249.

17. See Fisheries: Euro-MPs Adopt Report on CFP, EUR. REP., Oct. 1, 1997,

available in 1997 WL 13046948.

18. Fisheries: Commission Launches Debate on Market Reforms, EUR. REP., Dec.

17, 1997, available in 1997 WL 13048497.