Debate: Fisheries control
Date: TUESDAY, 9 MARCH 2021
Speaker: Virginijus Sinkevičius
Language: EN

The vote you will cast later today will have long-lasting effects, very likely for decades to come, as legislative reforms take time. We should, thus, take the opportunity now to get it right and ensure we have a modern and future—proof fisheries control system. With your vote, you have the choice to indicate the direction – whether these effects will be positive not only for the fish stocks in our seas and oceans, but also for the livelihoods of our fishermen and women, whether they will allow for a digital transformation of the fisheries sector, and whether they will be in line with the Green Deal, and with the EU’s industry and trade policy.  With this vote comes an important responsibility towards your constituencies, and more broadly towards EU citizens who call for a more sustainable future, but also towards our international partners – if the EU is to be credible in championing global efforts on international ocean governance. Why do I say this? Whilst I fully acknowledge the numerous positive aspects of the report, which is meant to become the European Parliament’s mandate for trilogue negotiations, I see big risks in some of the amendments adopted by the PECH Committee, and also in newly tabled amendments to which I would like to call your attention. Let me briefly explain which elements have triggered our particular concern.  Firstly, there is a clear risk that we are backtracking compared to current rules by relaxing current standards, and I am referring to the rules on the ‘margin of tolerance’, which sets the boundaries between what is considered to be legally and illegally caught and what is reported. Increasing the margin of tolerance or allowing generous derogations would legalise under-reporting and thus promote overfishing. Those amendments would actually erase 40 years of successive regulations and improvements in this field and would also largely benefit big operators as compared to small-scale fisheries. Such lax standards would therefore undermine the common fisheries policy and the objective of the EU biodiversity strategy, and there would be risks of reputational damage for the EU at international level.  How can we call for zero tolerance against illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing by third countries if we do not show exactly the same zero-tolerance approach in our own waters?  The second risk concerns illegal and undocumented discards at sea and is related to the amendments on closed-circuit TV cameras. We urgently need effective control tools to properly enforce the landing obligation. The landing obligation was the key element in the reform of the common fisheries policy in 2013, to finally end the wasteful practice of discards of unwanted fish, and if we fail to introduce compulsory remote electronic monitoring via closed-circuit TV cameras, we will continue to have illegal and undocumented discards, including of sensitive species. For the moment, there is no alternative control method here. Not introducing closed-circuit TV camera controls will have several negative repercussions. Firstly, ineffectively controlled fishing activities may lead to a decline of many fish stocks in our waters. Secondly, this decline of fish stocks will eventually negatively affect the profitability of the EU fleet, in particular, of the artisanal sector. Thirdly, it will hinder the transition to cleaner and selective fishing methods.  The third risk concerns our ability to effectively control engine power. The engine power of a fishing vessel largely determines its fishing capacity, meaning, essentially, how much fish a vessel can catch and how long it can fish for, and therefore it is essential to be able to effectively monitor and control the engine power of fishing vessels to avoid manipulations and to prevent excessive fishing capacity.  As a last point, let me also express the Commission’s strong concerns regarding the introduction of a safeguard clause resulting in the suspension of trade preferences in case a third country receives a yellow card in the context of our policy on fighting illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing. Such an approach would undermine and strain our relations with third countries as, under the current EU policy, trade sanctions are applied only at the stage of red cards.  It is also contradictory to the EU’s trade and sustainable development policy, and it pre-empts the outcome of its upcoming review. Furthermore, unilateral EU action could also undermine the EU’s credibility on multilateral forums, notably in the ongoing multilateral negotiations in the WTO on fisheries subsidies.  After almost three years of discussions on the Commission’s proposal for a modernised fisheries control system, I am very much looking forward to Parliament adopting its negotiation position. I also hope that the Council will follow in May, so that we will be able to start the trilogue negotiations soon and move forward with this important and very much awaited reform.  The mandate for the negotiations you will vote on today and tomorrow will determine the chances of the new fisheries control regulation being kept in line with the European Green Deal and the digital transformation of the EU, the two most important political priorities on which the Commission and this European Parliament jointly agreed.