22 July, 2008

SCOTTISH fishing leaders yesterday (Monday) hit out at a new report on the Common Fisheries Policy by the House of Lords committee on the European Union.

The report recommends fundamental reform of the CFP, arguing for a bottom up management approach through regional committees and voluntary conservation schemes.

However Lord Sewel, a former Scottish fishing minister who chairs the Lords’ EU sub-committee on environment and agriculture, backed the UK government’s policy to block fuel aid for fishermen.

"It is vital that member states should resist calls for subsidies to offset fishing vessels' rising operating costs,” Lord Sewel said.

“Public funds should instead be spent on attractive decommissioning schemes and on the economic diversification of coastal areas, so as to offer fishermen and their communities a real alternative.

His comments provoked an angry response from Scottish Fishermen’s Federation chief executive Bertie Armstrong, who is trying to persuade Westminster to follow the example of France and Spain and take up a generous £1.2 billion fuel support scheme put on the table by the EU last week.

Mr Armstrong said the report was wrong to suggest the rising price of fuel be used to force member states to reduce the size of their fleets.

“Being left to the wolves will certainly achieve a reduction in capacity, but it will be in the form of a collapse of areas of the industry plus the infrastructure and communities which support it," he said.

The Lords’ report says the CFP’s “dismal reputation” is justified because:

• an intricate and extensive regulatory regime has failed to protect fish stocks;
• compliance is poor and enforcement uneven;
• many segments of EU fishing fleets experience poor profitability; and
• fisheries management is carried out through an over-centralised, top-down legislative process that has alienated stakeholders and overburdened the European Commission.

The report concluded that the 2002 reform of the CFP had failed, the main cause being member states' reluctance to bring the size of their fishing fleets into line with available fishing opportunities.

However it noted that the UK had demonstrated a much greater commitment to “getting the balance right” than other member states, and praised the decommissioning that has taken place in Scotland.

The committee advocated a fundamental change in the way fisheries are governed, proposing that central EU institutions should only set strategic objectives, and allow regional management bodies to take the lead in devising strategies for achieving them.

The committee said this approach would promote both better management, adapted to regional circumstances, and better compliance.

It saw Regional Advisory Councils - a development arising from the 2002 reform of the CFP - and the piloting of voluntary measures, such as the Scottish Conservation Credits Scheme, as promising steps in the right direction.

The committee dismissed the prospect of withdrawing from the CFP as a credible policy option, and warned that it was “a dangerous distraction” from the more important task of reforming the current policy.

Other recommendations in the report include:

* wherever possible, control and enforcement measures should seek to work with fishermen's incentives to encourage good behaviour, for example as in the Scottish Conservation Credits Scheme;
* where punishment is needed it should be consistent across member states - the committee recommended a penalty points system where infringements are penalised with points leading to a temporary and eventually permanent suspension of fishing rights;
* other member states should ensure that they have implemented and are enforcing compulsory registration of buyers and sellers of first sale fish, which has all but eliminated demand for black (illegal) fish in the UK;
* the committee support the principle of a discard ban and endorse the European Commission's aim of progressively reducing maximum allowed by-catch limits to zero; and
* the committee regards the trading of fishing rights at national level as highly desirable, and supports further moves towards rights-based management within member states.