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European fisheries sector lost over EUR 2.4 billion from underused fishing quotas
The gap between the quotas distributed each year among the European Union member countries and the catches made by these countries has been growing since 2008, reveals a study carried out by Fishing Shipowners Cooperative de Armadores of Vigo Port (ARVI), the largest fishing association in Spain and Europe.
In fact, and according to that study, the European fishing sector has experienced losses of EUR 2,444 million due to underused quotas since 2008. According to ARVI data, between 2008 and 2016 the European States did not catch allocated 1,387,155 tonnes, which means an annual average of 154,000 tonnes that are stranded in the shipments.
The analysis indicates that the paradox is that in the same period, several hundred fishing vessels had to be scrapped due to lack of quotas, causing a cost in public aid of EUR 623 million and the loss of 31,000 jobs, only on board.
This mismatch between the amounts that are distributed and the quantities that are finally marketed in the ports is what leads ARVI to argue that it is necessary to review the current fisheries management system and modify the allocation criteria by TAC and quotas as the only viable alternative to avoid this imbalance.
The fishing association demands the modification of the current quota distribution model, since its permanence would imply new scrapping, more job losses and the continuation of a non-shared distribution, and proposes the creation of new tools or systems to face the new common fisheries policy (CFP), which includes the Zero Discard Law.
Thus, without renouncing the concept of Relative Stability of the European Union, ARVI considers that the Commission should establish a standard that makes it possible to complete the additional quotas of the States, through annual systems of rent or voluntary cession of unused quotas.
The fishing association maintains that the Council's repeated refusal to modify the quota allocation criteria keeps the CFP at the same point from which it started. In addition, it states that the subsequent Regulation on the CFP of 2013 has avoided the substance of the problem and has opted for flexibility. The future of European fisheries now depends on the interpretation of the limits of that flexibility.
These data, conclusions and demands have been published in the book The update of TAC and quotas given the prohibition of discards, and the main objective of its study has been to make visible figures with the quota management of the fishing system. To this end, the ARVI Technical Team has analyzed the 20 main species subject to quotas in the EU between 2008 and 2016, both inclusive. It should be noted that the fishing association has not been able to cover all the stocks-area because they do not have official information of the final quota allocated to those areas or catches.
ARVI groups 160 members, including associations of fishing operators and organizations specializing in the production and marketing of fishery products.
Länk: http://fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?l=e&id=96616&ndb=1