Major victory on EU Fisheries reform

The battle to reform one of the most iniquitous failings of the European Union made enormous progress last week.

It is not often that your hear a fishermen's representative and a marine environmentalist agreeing, let along on praising something the authorities have done, but that's what was broadcast on BBC Radio Four on Saturday morning after the European parliament gave final approval for major reforms of the Common Fisheries Policy which include replacing a policy which effectively forced fishermen to throw away millions of tons of fish every year with a ban on such discards.

The proportion of fish thrown back under the previous Common Fisheries policy varied between fisheries but it was everywhere large enough to count as a major environmental and economic disaster - the most recent estimate I have seen is that 23% of fish caught in EU fisheries are currently thrown back into the sea. Most of the round fish discarded will be dead or dying when they are returned to the sea.

The new policy which has been working its' way through the EU institutions is not yet perfect but there is every hope that it will be enormously better for fishermen, consumers, and the environment than the system it replaced.

There is a good report on this at

http://cfp-reformwatch.eu/2013/12/final-approval-for-the-common-fisheries-policy-reform/

Comments

Jim said…
"The new policy which has been working its' way through the EU institutions is not yet perfect but there is every hope that it will be enormously better for fishermen, consumers, and the environment than the system it replaced."

Well lets face it, it would have been an achievement to write home about if they had actually set out and managed to make it worse wouldn't it :)
4:41 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Yes, making it even worse would in an ironic way have been a remarkable achievement.

However, that does not alter the fact that the new policy is not just less bad, but a very great improvement.
8:10 pm
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