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May 2001
KEY POINTS
Background
The CFP has been an abject failure. It has failed
in its core objectives of maintaining employment
and sustaining fish stocks. The UK fleet has shrunk
by 3000 vessels since we joined the CFP. Many
thousands of jobs have been lost in the inshore
and deep-water fisheries. Thousands more have
been lost in the processing sector. Fish stocks
have collapsed, forcing the European Commission
to introduce emergency measures for the first
time, closing 40,000 square miles of the North
Sea to cod fishing. The once proud Scottish fleet
which landed 400,000 tonnes of cod a year in Scottish
ports in 1970 is now limited by strict TAC's and
quotas to a mere 20,000 tonnes a year. The situation
is no longer sustainable. Radical reform of the
CFP is long overdue.
A Green Paper on CFP reform has just been published
by the European Commission and contains proposals
which are generally acceptable to Conservatives
and which we support. In the document, the Commission
re-affirms the need to maintain 6 and 12 mile
limits to protect inshore fisheries, the need
to continue successful conservation zones like
the Shetland Box and the need to maintain the
concept of relative stability to limit access
to the North Sea. The Commission also supports
devolving some aspects of fisheries management
to zonal committees involving key stakeholders
such as fishermen and scientists in an advisory
role.
However, the Spanish, who have Europe's biggest
fishing fleet (18,000 vessels), together with
their southern allies - the Greeks, Italians,
Portuguese and French have already intimated their
opposition to much of the Green Paper. At a Fisheries
Council meeting in April, Ministers from those
southern Member States intimated their hostility
to the 12 mile coastal zone and called for an
easing of provisions regarding access to fishing
areas ("relative stability") and the Shetland
Box.
Clearly Conservatives will have a major fight
on their hands in the months ahead. If the Commission
proposals are thrown out by the Fisheries Council
and British waters face an unprecedented invasion
led by the Spanish armada, then a Conservative
Government would seek to devolve management of
the CFP to national, regional or zonal control.
A Tory commitment to radical CFP
reform
When we fought and handsomely won the European
elections in June 1999 on the popular slogan "In
Europe but not run by Europe", we specified what
this would mean for our fishermen. Our manifesto
noted that British fishermen were facing "increasing
pressure from falling quotas and quota hopping,
while the conservation of fish stocks is being
undermined by the large amount of dead fish returned
to the sea."
The manifesto went on to call for an end "to
current CFP arrangements which are clearly not
working." The document called for the CFP to be
radically reformed, giving fishermen more say
in fishing policy and devolving power to national,
regional and local levels. "This would give local
British fishing industries control over the stock
of fisheries, while recognising the traditional
rights of other countries," the document stated,
spelling out that Tories would seek to devolve
fisheries responsibility to a system of zonal
or coastal management.
This commitment, built upon our manifesto pledge
for the last General Election, when we specified
that we would press "for the introduction of more
regional management of fishing in the EU, involving
government, scientists and fishermen. We shall
use these committees to develop new ways of managing
quotas and regulating fisheries which are more
sensitive to the industry's needs."
Progress in Europe
So what progress have Conservatives in the European
Parliament made towards fulfilling those pledges?
British waters contain 65% of all the fishing
resources in the entire EU, so Conservative MEPs
are keenly aware of the need to get the best possible
deal for UK fishermen.
After Britain joined the EU, our waters were
protected from a vast influx of foreign vessels
by the temporary retention of our 6 and 12 mile
limits and by limiting access to the North Sea,
based on the concept of relative stability, to
those countries who traditionally fished there,
such as Norway, Germany, Belgium and France. Huge
conservation zones like the Shetland and Irish
Boxes, have been the subject of even more stringent
access agreements. Fishing quotas and technical
conservation measures such as enlarged net mesh
sizes, have attempted to control over-fishing
and related problems such as discarding and dumping
of fish back into the sea, although with little
success.
The Spanish Armada
Under present arrangements, the Spanish, Portuguese,
Dutch, Danes and Finns have been denied access
to the North Sea. This has long been a source
of deep aggravation, particularly to the Spanish,
who now seek the opportunity to revise North Sea
access arrangements under the imminent CFP reform
proposals. There are almost 18,000 vessels in
the Spanish fishing fleet, compared to 7,800 in
the UK, so the scale of a potential invasion by
the Spanish Armada could be considerable.
At present, hundreds of Spanish vessels, primarily
from Galicia, are tied up, unable to fish in their
main Mediterranean and Atlantic fishing grounds,
after the Moroccan Government threw them out.
The Moroccans are demanding more cash from the
European Commission before they allow the 450
Spanish vessels who fish in their waters to return.
The CFP is paying the Spanish fishermen to stay
at home while negotiations continue, a situation
which has now prevailed for 18 months. Meanwhile,
the Spaniards are looking enviously at what they
perceive as the rich fishing resources surrounding
the British Isles.
Third country agreements are a common feature
of the CFP. Most of the agreements between the
EU and northern countries such as Norway, are
purely on a reciprocal basis. Fishing rights in
EU waters are exchanged for fishing rights in
the national waters of the country in question.
However, most fisheries agreements with southern
states are on a "fish for money" basis, meaning
third countries trade the rights to fish for financial
support. These types of agreements cost EU taxpayers
£269 million in 1999, with the fishing industries
of Spain, Portugal and France and the southern
Member States as the main beneficiaries.
The CFP has failed
There is a growing awareness that the core objectives
of the CFP have failed. Declining fleet numbers,
lost jobs and rapidly dwindling stocks of herring,
cod and whitefish have been the trademarks of
the CFP. The quota system, designed to conserve
fish stocks, has led to the dumping of thousands
of tons of dead fish at sea.
Fishermen who inadvertently haul in the wrong
species of fish, for which they have no quota,
have no alternative but to dump them back in the
water, dead. If they attempt to land or sell such
catches, they would be prosecuted. The ecological
damage caused to the entire marine environment
by discarding fish in this way is horrendous.
It is staggering to realise that 25% of all fish
caught in the EU annually - over 2 million tonnes
- are discarded in this way. This damning statistic
will surely be a lasting monument to the waste
and inefficiency of the CFP. Britain's fleet has
been cut by 3000 vessels since we joined the EU.
Now the European Commission has called for further
drastic cuts, pointing out, quite correctly, that
the entire EU fleet is far too large. There are
simply too many fishermen chasing too few fish.
However, the Spanish and Dutch have resisted significant
cuts in their fleet while the number of UK vessels
has continued to decline.
With the intention of restructuring and modernising
the European fleet, the Commission introduced
"scrap and build" programmes designed to replace
older and unsafe community vessels with fewer,
but more advanced new ones. By utilising this
programme to its full extent, Member States such
as Holland and Spain now have modern fleets at
their disposal, paid for substantially out of
the EU budget to which the UK is a substantial
net contributor.
For the most part, the UK Government has refused
to access the 'scrap and build' programme, because
the Treasury has been unwilling to pay their share
of co-financing arrangements with the Commission.
As a result, the UK fleet is, on average, around
30 years old, increasingly un-safe and un-seaworthy
and unable to compete effectively with our continental
neighbours.
Industrial fishing
Despite introducing emergency measures to close
40,000 square miles of the North Sea for cod fishing,
the European Commission awarded a TAC of over
one million tonnes for sandeels to Denmark and
insisted that this industrial fishery should continue
throughout the 12 week period of closure, despite
the fact that the massive Danish klondykers use
20 mm mesh nets. The Danish sandeel fishery and
the Norwegian pout fishery take many thousands
of tonnes of cod and other whitefish as by-catch.
This is virtually impossible to monitor, as their
catch is processed into slurry while the vessels
are at sea. Scottish fishermen are angry that
industrial fishing on this scale is being allowed
to continue, while, in a ill-conceived attempt
to protect cod, they are forced to use nets with
140 mm mesh panels, allowing the escape of even
marketable haddock! The fishermen also point to
the fact that sandeel is the traditional staple
food of cod and the removal of vast quantities
of this staple feedstock can only further damage
any hope of a future recovery in cod stocks.
Frequently asked questions
- So what does the future hold for the beleaguered
fishing sector? There is a strong likelihood
that the renewal of the 6 and 12-mile limits,
due to expire at the end of 2002, will be challenged
by the Southern Member States, with the UK,
Germany and Denmark supporting their retention
as a way of providing protection for inshore
fishermen and small, local fishing communities.
- Where do the Tories stand in the debate about
the future devolution of fisheries management?
There is a widespread feeling, particularly
in the UK, that for too long Brussels bureaucrats
have made a hash of running the CFP. Now, even
the European Commission has recognised in their
Green Paper, that management of fisheries should
be devolved to the fishermen, scientists and
other stakeholders who live and work in specific
fishing zones. They are the ones who know best
what measures should be implemented to protect
against over-fishing in their areas. Such areas
could be defined as The North Sea, The Western
Approaches, Bay of Biscay and the West of Scotland/Irish
Sea etc. Management committees in each zone
would take decisions on TACs (Total Allowable
Catches), quotas, discards, technical conservation
measures and enforcement. Conservatives support
this line and will fight to see that the Green
Paper recommendations are upheld.
- Should Britain not pursue a policy of repatriation
of the CFP to Westminster? If the Green Paper
recommendations on zonal management, 6 and 12
mile limits, relative stability and continuation
of the Shetland Box, fail to achieve support
in the Council of Ministers, a Conservative
Government will examine ways of devolving control
of the CFP to national, regional or zonal management
structures, with Holyrood, Stormont, Cardiff
and Westminster playing key roles as appropriate
under the devolution settlement.
- Why don't the fishermen go ahead and set up
zonal committees themselves? Why wait for the
politicians and bureaucrats to give the go ahead?
They have! Already over 60 regions from the
UK, Germany, Belgium, France, Norway and Denmark
have formed the North Sea Commission and created
a fisheries committee as a model of how such
zonal management structures could operate. This
committee was ably chaired by the late Scottish
Tory Peer, Lord MacKay of Ardbrecknish, until
his recent untimely death. By bringing together
fishermen and scientists with a traditional
interest and expertise in the North Sea, this
organisation has acted as a trailblazer for
the future devolution of the CFP. It is widely
applauded by the industry and accepted by UK
Conservative MEP's as the ideal way forward.
- Will EU enlargement pose problems for our
fishermen? With enlargement of the EU just around
the corner, there is a desperate need to secure
a fundamental reform of the CFP as quickly as
possible. Countries like Poland and Estonia
will become full members of the EU within the
next five years. Both have extensive fishing
fleets. The Polish fishing industry employs
around 40,000 people. Their fleet of 423 cutters
and 36 factory trawlers, is already over 35
years old. The Poles would dearly love to take
full advantage of current EU scrap and build
programmes, cutting down the size of their fleet,
and replacing older vessels with state-of-the-art
modern killing machines that can hoover up vast
quantities of fish. Fishermen in the Northern
Isles remember Lerwick Harbour in Shetland being
used as a base by Polish fishing boats, when
they fished in the North Sea around 30 years
ago. They fear that diminishing stocks of cod,
herring and sprats in the Baltic may entice
them and other central and east European nations
back to the North Sea again. But this time they
will be in a fully modernised fleet, paid for
by EU taxpayers.
- Will the next Conservative Government fight
for British fishermen? Fishing is a major industry
in the UK. It employs over 18,000 people directly
and supports fragile economies in many peripheral
and remote rural communities. It is of vital
importance that UK Conservatives evolve a policy
that not only sustains the industry and secures
its future, but also recognises the practicalities
of CFP reform policy options. The UK fishing
industry is far too important to be turned into
a political football as Labour, the Lib/Dems
and the SNP would like to. The CFP is crying
out for reform. The EU fishery is far too large.
It should be de-centralised to manageable units.
However, management policy must involve the
fishermen themselves. They will respect their
own policies more than hand-downs from Brussels.
Local people must take local decisions. Fishermen
must learn to become harvesters rather than
hunters.
Struan Stevenson MEP is a Conservative Member
of the European Parliament for Scotland and is
front bench UK Fisheries Spokesman.
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