Changes from plenary report to adopted text

CI. whereas artisanal fishing in the ORs is a major economic driver, a source of food sovereignty and a traditional activity that is part of the culture of these territories, which creates jobs at sea and in the processing sector and contributes to the dynamism of the tourist industry, which is an important economic engine of these regions;

CJ. whereas, in order to ensure the survival of the fisheries sector in the ORs and in compliance with the principles of differential treatment for small islands and territories mentioned in SDG 14, it should be possible to support, on the basis of Article 349 TFEU, the renewal of the ORs’ artisanal fishing vessels which land all their catches in ports in the ORs and contribute to local sustainable development;

CK. whereas the indicators to establish whether the fishing capacity is in balance with the available fishing opportunities are not adapted to the characteristics of the ORs’ local fleets;

CL. whereas the ORs’ special characteristics and permanent structural constraints need to be acknowledged and considered; stresses that the fisheries sector plays an important role in the socio-economic situation, in employment and in the promotion of the economic and social cohesion of these regions, and that there is potential for employment growth in the sustainable blue economy; highlights that geographical location puts outermost regions in a privileged position in the monitoring and control of coastal and oceanic areas and should be used for the EU’s efforts to fight IUU fishing;

CM. whereas climate change is a major challenge for the conservation of aquatic resources and for the future livelihoods of operators who depend on fisheries;

CN. whereas fishers are victims of climate change;

CO. whereas climate change has a major direct impact on marine species by altering their abundance, diversity and migration patterns and affecting their feeding, development and reproduction, as well as relations between species; whereas these changes have an impact on the CFP and the management of EU waters;

CP. whereas the resilience and good health of marine ecosystems is essential both for climate regulation and for the conservation of fish stocks;

CQ. whereas the preservation and regeneration of blue carbon ecosystems is essential for the resilience of coastal communities and the fisheries sector;

General objectives of the CFP

1. Recalls that the CFP must ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the long term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, of contributing to the availability of food supplies; further recalls that Article 39 TFEU defines that the CFP must assure the availability of supplies and provide a fair standard of living for fisheries and aquaculture communities;

2. Regrets that, since 2014, the implementation of the CFP has not given sufficient consideration to socio-economic aspects or the availability of food supply or the ecosystem-based approach, all of which are needed to ensure sustainable management of stocks;

3. Considers that the resulting negative impacts on the fishing sector have been exacerbated since new unprecedented challenges have arisen that could not have been predicted in 2012, when the CFP was being designed, such as Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis; highlights the severe impact the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which is having adverse effects on areas such as maritime security, resulting in disruption of fishing activities, particularly in the Black Sea, owing to drifting floating mines, and leading to a loss of biodiversity, reflected in particular by the alarming increase in the mortality of Black Sea cetaceans;

4. Welcomes the swift adoption of measures by the EU to support and alleviate the sector in difficult times; emphasises, however, that the cumulative effects of this situation have led numerous fleets to the brink of collapse and undermined the profitability of thousands of businesses to the point where their very survival is at risk, with potentially devastating effects on employment and social cohesion in coastal areas;

5. Stresses that the implementation of the CFP will have to adapt to the challenge of fighting climate change, where the EU has committed to be climate neutral by 2050;

6. Therefore, believes that the CFP must continue to be implemented, and where needed, reformed and adapted accordingly;

7. Underlines that seafood is a very high-quality source of protein and a vital part of a healthy diet, which generally has a lower carbon footprint than land-based food; notes therefore the strategic value of seafood in the context of the European Green Deal and in contributing to several SDGs such as SDG 2 ‘Zero Hunger’, SDG 3 ‘Good Health and Well-Being’, SDG 12 ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, SDG 13 ‘Climate Action’ and SDG 14 ‘Life Below Water’;

8. Considers that the CFP must respect equally all policy objectives; stresses the need to keep a balance between the three pillars of sustainability in the CFP; therefore supports strengthening, addressing gaps and stepping up the ambition in the CFP’s socio-economic and food security dimensions, as well as fully applying an ecosystem based approach and the reaching of a level playing field in its international dimension;

9. Takes the view that the objectives of a fisheries policy should include guaranteeing the supply of fish to the public, as part of ensuring food security and sovereignty, developing coastal communities, and championing and encouraging the social recognition of fisheries-related professions, as well as promoting jobs and improving the living conditions of fishers;

10. Calls on the Commission, to that end, to systematically conduct full ex ante and ex post impact assessments, including socio-economic analyses, before any strategy or legislation is proposed or any policy decisions are taken with the consultation of all stakeholders involved in the fisheries sector;

11. Notes that while the CFP Basic Regulation highlights the environmental, socio-economic and food security objectives of the policy, Regulation (EU) 2016/2336 relating to deep-sea stocks deals solely with environmental aspects; considers that in future all regulations subordinate to the Basic Regulation should fully incorporate socio-economic and food security aspects;

12. Calls on the Commission and the Council to place more value in policymaking on the importance of fisheries in contributing to food security by providing high-quality seafood products, especially in crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in its contribution to the economic and social structure, and the cultural, touristic and gastronomic heritage of Europe’s coastal and island communities;

13. Stresses the strategic role of fishers and aquaculture producers in the food value chain and in food security, as well as the role of women, as fishers, vessel masters, net menders, shore-based assistants and packagers, etc., and their need for recognition;

14. Recalls that all seas and the ocean are a global common good and that the marine resources are a natural public resource, that fishing activities and management are an asset based on these resources and belong to our common heritage, and that these resources should be managed based on reliable scientific advice in a way that guarantees the highest long-term benefits for all society;

15. Believes that the de minimis aid ceiling for fishery and aquaculture product processing companies should be aligned with the same scheme for agricultural processing companies in order to ensure consistency and guarantee food security; welcomes therefore the amendments adopted by the Commission to the de minimis scheme in this regard;

Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY)

16. Recalls that, the CFP shall, among other things, ‘aim to ensure that exploitation of living marine biological resources restores and maintains populations of harvested species above levels which can produce the MSY’ and that ‘the MSY exploitation rate shall be achieved (...) at the latest by 2020 for all stocks’ and by 2025 for the stocks covered by the management plan for demersal stocks in the western Mediterranean Sea; highlights, however, that for multi-specific fisheries, species management based on the MSY model is impossible to apply, even in scientifically well-known and documented fisheries;

17. Considers that the introduction of MSY as a fisheries management reference point has been a driver for improving the overall state of fish stocks; recalls that over the years of the application of the CFP, the fishing industry has made significant efforts to reduce fishing pressure to the point that, in 2020, the overall fishing mortality ratio (F/FMSY) fell below one in the North-East Atlantic;

18. Stresses that it is crucial to continue and accelerate the work of rebuilding and keeping fish stocks above MSY levels, notably in the Mediterranean where the F/FMSY remains above 1, while ensuring that maximum sustainable levels of seafood are produced, in order to ensure availability of food supply and positive social and economic returns to fishers and coastal communities;

19. Considers, in this regard, that the MSY objective should be implemented in light of the practical reality and in consideration of the socio-economic, proportionality and food security dimensions enshrined in the Treaty and in the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) code of conduct;

20. Further considers that MSY should be developed as part of an ecosystem-based model that encompasses all factors that influence the status of stocks, including species interactions, global warming and pollution, in order to ensure that stock depletion is not attributed to the fisheries sector alone;

21. Calls on the Commission, following a broad stakeholders’ consultation to examine the possibility of introducing fisheries management objectives that ensure both optimum fish stock levels and optimum socio-economic performance of fleets;

22. Invites, in this regards, Member States that want to initiate projects, including other types of management measures such as Maximum Economic Yield, where appropriate, to launch consultations to see where such trial projects could best be conducted;

Landing obligation and reduction of unwanted catches

23. Reiterates the views expressed in its resolution of 18 May 2021 on the landing obligation; recalls that some unwanted catches or by-catches are inevitable, especially in mixed fisheries, as fish may be damaged or unsaleable, undersized or fit for human consumption but prohibited for sale, etc.; further recalls that, despite the ongoing efforts and collaboration by all stakeholders, the landing obligation cannot be properly implemented if some shortcomings, such as the lack of storage capacity on board or collection facilities at port as well as adequate usage of exemptions, are not improved; points out that these shortcomings hinder proper implementation, which results in insufficient data collection on stocks and makes it difficult to accurately estimate catches, thereby hindering reliable scientific estimates of fish stocks;

24. Highlights that the landing obligation is not a goal in itself but a tool to minimise unwanted catches; stresses, in this regard, that, thanks to the greater selectivity achieved in recent years, there has been a considerable reduction in unwanted by-catch; highlights that this is the result of the efforts made by fishers in collaboration with the scientific community with applied knowledge supporting the development of more selective fishing techniques and gear; stresses, therefore, that more effort must be focused on financing development as well as deployment of fishing gear that contribute to selectivity and better data collection;

25. Recalls that Parliament asked the Commission to assess the implementation of the landing obligation, including an assessment of the socio-economic impact of the landing obligation that must be carried out for all fisheries, including small-scale ones;

26. Considers furthermore that:

– the current landing obligation should be applied in a pragmatic manner, taking into account the specific characteristics of each fishery; underlines the importance of fishers’ experience on when and where to fish while avoiding unwanted catches, valuing their efforts to improve selectivity;

– quota swaps between Member States and between Producers’ Organisations, through quota pools, as well as technical and spatiotemporal selectivity, should be encouraged;

– the importance of maintaining the existing exemptions to the landing obligation, based on the best available scientific advice should be acknowledged, as well as reducing the administrative burden in implementing the landing obligation; the Commission should take this into account when reviewing them;

– the application of the landing obligation, including its scope, should be reviewed so as to limit the problems of choke species and complex derogations;

27. Insists that the objective of minimising unwanted catches cannot sufficiently be achieved through the landing obligation and should be primarily met by using technical measures and should be supported by better documenting catches, on the basis of the best available scientific advice; calls on the Commission to assess other alternatives to minimising unwanted catches, as well as proposing actions to make the landing obligation work better, in parallel with continuing looking for different ways to implement the landing obligation and to developing more selective gear;

Conservation measures

Fishing opportunities

28. Recalls that TACs and quotas are the most direct way of managing fishing mortality, but single stock TACs can be problematic in mixed fisheries (due to the choke effect);

29. Highlights the need to improve the scientific advice for mixed fisheries also in the light of impacts of climate change on the ocean, as well as considering catch composition and the displacement of species, due to climate change, when setting TACs;

30. Stresses that in fisheries under quota management the problem of choke species has the potential to shut down fishing operations before the end of the season with potentially significant economic implications for fishers; calls on the Commission and the Member States to use current CFP possibilities, like quota swaps or inter-annual and inter-species flexibilities, while underlining in this regard that a good quota system should include a fair degree of flexibility, as it would allow fishers who need extra quotas for a choke species and fishers who have available quotas to arrive at a mutually beneficial outcome;

31. Calls on the Commission and the Council to consider setting TACs for longer than annual or biannual periods, in particular for the main target stocks, always based on the best scientific advice available, in order to provide more predictability and long-term certainty for fishers and in line with the MSY principle; calls on the Commission and the Council to seek the best available scientific advice on the possibility of removing the TACs for certain stocks, while ensuring that the stock concerned remains within safe biological limits in the short and medium term;

32. Underlines that relative stability, established four decades ago, is widely accepted as an essential instrument to provide long-term predictability and continuity in sharing fish stocks between countries;

Fleet management

33. Stresses that, despite international and EU efforts to improve safety conditions on board fishing vessels, there are still shortcomings, i.e. the international conventions setting out the rules and systems for the protection of vessels and persons on board apply above all to larger vessels;

34. Reiterates that on board working and living conditions cannot be seen separately from safety conditions; takes the view that good working and living conditions on vessels and the suitable modernisation thereof, improves safety, as well as resting time for fishers; considers that these aspects have direct implications for safety on board, as a large percentage of accidents and incidents on fishing vessels continue to be linked to human error, whether caused by lack of knowledge, training or by fatigue;

35. Urges the Commission and the Member States to ensure the highest standards of safety on board vessels, irrespective of their size; encourages the sector to implement the best possible conditions for safety on board;

36. Taking into consideration current EMFAF possibilities to support health, safety, working conditions and energy efficiency on board fishing vessels, insists that the current use of gross tonnage as a yardstick for measuring fishing capacity in the EU could hamper improvements in energy efficiency, safety and comfort of vessels, as it limits possibilities to replace and modernise them or increase space, even if it does not increase the vessels’ ability to fish more; stresses that this, in turn, hampers the improvement of the aforementioned features, which would ultimately promote employment, the development of coastal communities and the attractiveness of the sector, especially for young people and women;

37. Takes note of the Commission communication on the Energy Transition of the EU Fisheries and Aquaculture sector, seeking to ensure that the fishing sector contributes to the EU becoming climate neutral in 2050, while ensuring that fishing in the EU is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable; points out that this transition faces a number of obstacles, such as the current definition and limits of fishing capacity; recalls that hydrogen, ammonia or electric engines are generally heavier and larger than equivalent diesel engines and that their installation on board therefore requires additional gross tonnage and that there is a lack of adapted technologies, their high cost and the absence of research and development focusing specifically on the fisheries and aquaculture sectors; regrets that these obstacles are not addressed in the Commission communication;

38. Calls on the Commission to propose measures to respond to the need to facilitate the decarbonisation of the fishing industry, to solve the issue of ageing fishing vessels and to improve safety and working conditions; considers that such measures could, where appropriate, include:

– fully utilising the available gross tonnage within national capacity ceilings,

– redefining fishing capacity, for example, by excluding the ‘social and safety’ related tonnage from the calculation of the fishing capacity,