EU Action Plan: protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries

The Committee on Development calls on the Committee on Fisheries, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.Recalls the vital importance of the ocean as a pillar of the climate and food systems; calls for the global preservation of ocean-based livelihoods and ocean biodiversity; stresses the ocean’s critical role, in particular in carbon sequestration, job creation, goods transportation and internet communications; warns of the interdependence between fisheries and food security, as 3.3 billion people depend on food from the sea to obtain at least 20 % of their animal protein intake;

2.Stresses our individual and collective responsibility to preserve the ocean, which is our global common; calls for closer cooperation to improve waste and wastewater management and urgently address plastic pollution by cutting down on plastics use; welcomes the Commission’s strategy to implement the ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management; calls on the Commission, however, to revise the strategy to include all sectors of the blue economy, including extractive industries;

3.Recalls that the protection and restoration of marine ecosystems require strategic and ambitious global ocean governance benefiting local small-scale fisheries and based on sustainable fishing practices in collaboration with coastal communities; highlights the link between healthy ecosystems and economic development and calls for the EU to ensure that transparency clauses also apply to fishing resources caught by foreign fleets;

4.Recalls the EU’s commitment to the principle of policy coherence for development; highlights the need to include comprehensive human rights clauses within sustainable fisheries partnership agreements, which should be transparent and in line with the Sustainable Development Goals; insists that EU protein consumption must not undermine food security in developing countries and that sectoral support should contribute to the sustainable development of the fisheries sector;

5.Urges the mobilisation of sufficient funds to mitigate the adverse impacts on fishing communities of climate change and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; is concerned about the limited amount of EU budget allocated to protecting and restoring marine ecosystems.