(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
As in meat production, it is nature that strikes back – when endurance is stretched too far.
The fish can disappear – and the fishermen with it. If the fisheries policy is not changed dramatically, more species will become extinct and the fishing district will be depopulated.
That is the message in a so-called "Green Paper" on EU fisheries policy that the European Commission recently (19 March) presented.
According to Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler, the outlook is bleak: “If we do not implement reforms soon, many exciting species of fish may disappear altogether. It simply catches too much juvenile fish, so the stocks do not renew. The EU's fishing fleet is currently 40 per cent too large, and the entire fishing sector is permeated with mistrust because the fishermen feel neglected in the decision-making process. ”
Tighter quotas
The Green Paper demands that much tighter quotas be set for what can be fished. Instead of the annual tug-of-war, multi-year quotas must be set – at the same time as control of both the catch and the fish stock must be improved. The latter shall provide a basis for the quotas to be able to change during the year if it turns out that more is being fished than the stock can withstand.
Now the tug-of-war does not disappear because if the quotas become multi-year – or because it becomes possible to change them at any time. There is still a battle over how large the total catch can be for different fish species. And there will be a battle over how the total catch will be distributed.
Stricter control
The control of how much is fished must also be stricter. It is no longer useful to rely on national control. Joint EU inspection is needed. A "Joint Inspection Office" will be established directly under the European Commission. The office shall coordinate the national control and contribute to the rules being complied with – and complied with equally.
But the office should not just coordinate. National control must be monitored. It is obviously far too tempting to look through the fingers of what their own fishermen are catching. Therefore, EU inspectors with the right to impose fines for overfishing are needed.
The punishment for violations must also be "harmonized" – as it is called in the EU language when it is to be as similar as possible across national borders and administrative regimes.
Away with overcapacity!
The Green Paper requires that the fishing fleet must be heavily sanitized. The EU has been trying for a long time. Support has been provided for cutting up old fishing boats, but at the same time support has been given for new construction and for new catch technology. The ability to fish the EU sea clean for fish has increased with each passing year.
now it's really serious. Boats are to be cut up. Coastal districts will receive support to develop jobs outside of fishing.
National resistance
The EU has made fisheries policy supranational. There is no Spanish, Danish or British fisheries policy. And there are no national borders between the fish banks – there is only one common EU sea.
This is what makes the pressure for overfishing so difficult to resist. Each country has no overall ecological responsibility for maintaining the stocks. That responsibility lies with the EU.
But each national government is responsible for getting the largest possible quota for its own fishermen – when the quotas are set and distributed. That is why the battle for quotas is so bitter – and ends up that the total quotas are systematically set unreasonably high. Each national government is pressured by its own fishermen, by its own fishing industry and by the danger of unemployment in the fishing districts.
appealingly
Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France and Ireland are the largest fishing nations within the EU – and they do not devour the message of the Green Paper and Fisheries Commissioner Fischler without further ado. Three of them belong to the great powers within the EU. They are not used to giving up without a sword. Fischler obviously has a point when he states that fish is needed to fish. But why should Spaniards be allowed to fish when the British can not? And vice versa?
It can seem daunting that resources that cross national borders – as fish easily do – are best managed if they can be managed supranationally. So far, the EU has not convinced in that direction.
Freedom of action outside the EU
1. The management of fishery resources remains a Norwegian responsibility.
2. Norway can still act on its own in international maritime policy and fisheries policy.
Mirrored interests
The latter is particularly important because Norway and the EU have conflicting interests in maritime and fisheries policy in so many ways. Norway is fighting for the interests of the coastal states, while the EU is fighting to limit them as much as possible.
Over the past 10-15 years, Norway has led a far more sound management of fishery resources than the EU. It is therefore extremely regrettable that the catch quotas in Norwegian waters (for example, for cod) in recent years have been well above what fisheries researchers recommend. Such a policy is to abuse the freedom of action outside the EU.
Market access to quotas
Norway has rich fishing resources in relation to the population and exports most of the catch. The EU is in the opposite situation – with scarce fishing resources in its own waters and with large imports of fish. The EU also has a fishing fleet that is far too large, and which is therefore looking for fish in other waters. At each crossroads, therefore, the EU has demanded an exchange of market access with fishing quotas. This happened during the negotiations on the EEA agreement in 1992 – and again during the negotiations on EU membership in 1994. In order for Norway to be allowed to sell fish to the EU, the EU has demanded that EU fishermen be allowed to fish in Norwegian waters.
EEA Agreement
The EEA agreement gave Norway tariff freedom for a number of unprocessed fish products that had been subject to tariff rates of 3 per cent to 30 per cent. For some other products, including processed whitefish, customs duties were reduced. But for some species there was no change. The EU maintained its tariffs on salmon, herring, mackerel and shrimp.
In return for increased market access, Norway had to give the EU cod quotas in Norwegian waters. On paper, Norway received compensation in the form of quotas for other species in the North Sea, but for species that were less valuable and less relevant to fish.
Not quota jumping
On the other hand, the EU did not realize that EU companies should invest in the Norwegian fishing fleet and obtain quotas in this way (so-called "quota jumping").
The EEA agreement, on the other hand, meant that Norway adopted the EU regulations for quality control of fish and fishery products. The Norwegian fishing industry has had to invest over NOK XNUMX billion to satisfy the new regulations. Many of the hygiene requirements are highly contested. This applies to the requirement to replace timber with metal or plastic in processing plants and on boats.
EU fisheries policy
EU fisheries policy is not a national issue. The coastal zones of the EU states are, in the context of fisheries, a common EU sea where EU regulations apply. It is also the EU that controls the development of the fishing fleet and of the market for fish products with its various forms of structural measures.
Each year, EU fishing is supported by NOK 9 billion. In comparison, the Norwegian fisheries industry receives a grant of NOK 100 million. This corresponds roughly to the difference in population between the EU and Norway, but by no means to the difference in catch levels. The Norwegian fisheries industry can now manage in reality without public support. It does not do the fishing industry in the EU.
