Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

In fact, 70 % of seafood consumed in Europe is imported. And European fishers follow some of the strictest rules in the world governing their activities in all fishing categories and activities, giving them both an exemplary role and, above all, the role of guarantor of the best fishing practices.

The European co-legislators, and therefore the European Parliament, must be the guarantors of the balance in the necessary transformation of certain practices due mainly to climate change, but also to a variety of more or less predictable factors: harmful species, declining stocks, but also thanks to improved data on the oceans.

Action does not mean prohibition. Action does not mean revolution. Action must not mean imposing ideas and political programmes on European players without dialogue, and worse, to their detriment.

It is incoherent and worrying to note the paralysis of the European Commission in the dialogue with the fishers while it advocates action! No action will be taken without the guardians of the relationship between man and the oceans, i.e. the local fishers and the small-scale artisanal fishing.

There are many major threats to the oceans: pollution, ocean warming, plastic and climate change and their effects are just as visible: increasing eutrophication, acidification, ocean warming, plastic pollution or in some cases uncontrolled increase in predatory birds. But where the European institutions have acted in close consultation with the fishing industry and fishermen, progress and positive news are accumulating. For example, there are significant improvements in the state of fish stocks in the EU seas and many operations with certified sustainability in their fisheries. In the last 20 years, fish biomass in the Northeast Atlantic has increased significantly and, according to the latest report from STECF (STECF 22-01 ad hoc) in 2020, it was approximately 35 % higher than in 2003. At the same time, fishing mortality has decreased significantly, and the number of overfished stocks is also declining.

The chaotic communication and internal imbroglio surrounding the European Commission's action plan unfortunately played a large part in turning it into a last chance plan that would wipe out current good practice, socio-economic issues and the positions of the fishing industry, and which would have repressive consequences for Member States before the Court of Justice. The European Commission's next term should avoid this kind of pitfall and should not play politics with an issue as important as the oceans. Action plans must be built on successes and failures, on sacrifices and efforts made by the European fishing industry. The aim of the action plans must not be to replace European fishing with imports, even less so since the war in Ukraine, which has opened the eyes of Europeans and above all the world to the need to ensure strategic autonomy and food security in the same way as agriculture.

Finally, and this is another major point. We need to know what we are talking about. Let’s also rely on scientific research which, in conjunction with fishing activities, is already helping to make the European fisheries policy an exemplary policy based on science and reality. There is sometimes a lack of rationality in debates and positions, with some people wanting to prohibit rather than understand that it is perfectly possible to limit or organise the cohabitation of human activities and protection of the oceans. Prohibiting certain activities that are well regulated at European level often allows bad practices to be authorised abroad.

For example during a four-year research project, the impact of brown shrimp fishing on the predominant habitat types in the Wadden Sea National Parks along the German North Sea coast was closely examined. This included an investigation into both short-term effects and long-term changes caused by brown shrimp fishing. The result: brown shrimp fishing has only a minor impact on the seabed. Where there were effects at the species level, these were only short-lived. However, these results are not new. When the two national parks on the German North Sea coast were established, there was a comprehensive study on the influence of brown shrimp fishing called the Wadden Sea Ecosystem Research. In the final report at that time, the authors concluded that the direct effects of brown shrimp fishing are only short-term.

To conclude, MPAs have different conservation objectives. They are established to protect natural resources such as mammals, birds, or turtles, often not specifically for the protection of the seabed. Management measures are adapted to the respective local conditions.

Therefore, the action plan should follow a transversal and holistic approach and not focusing only on fisheries activities as the sole responsible for all the problems.