European Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, Maria Damanaki, tells Public Service Review about the conflicts and complements of maritime and financial environments
Since I took up my post as Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries at the beginning of 2010, fisheries news has been somewhat overshadowed by the wider economic crisis.
And indeed, that crisis has only compounded the underlying contradictions which the fishing industry has been facing for a long time, without tackling them head on. It is my hope that the current climate, while difficult for some of our fleets, will help focus all our minds and wills on the need to make fundamental changes in the way we manage our fisheries.
It is the continuing short-term bias in our decision-making that creates so many conflicts between economic interests and ecological logic. If the EU fishing industry is to have a viable future, we need to get the environment and the economy working together, not against one another. The next reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is our best – and maybe our last – chance to fix this problem.
The Commission launched an extensive consultation process in 2009 which lasted through to the summer of this year. In 2011, we will be presenting our proposals on how the next CFP should work in practice.
Reaffirming sustainability as the CFP’s primary goal means basing our management decisions strictly on science. To do this effectively, we need to know more about both the fish stocks we are fishing, and the ecosystems in which they live. There are still too many gaps and uncertainties in our knowledge. Only through more research into the marine environment will we be able to bring the CFP fully into line with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which has set the date of 2020 for the EU Member States to get our seas and oceans into good environmental status. The fishing industry has its part to play in making sure we reach that target.
The only way to get there is to work together. Stakeholders need to be more involved in developing and implementing policy on every level. Since the 2002 Reform, the EU has made giant strides in listening to stakeholders and involving them in decision-making, in particular through the establishment of the Regional Advisory Councils (RACs). This trend needs to be continued and deepened.
But the industry has to do more than just provide managers with advice. They also have to take real responsibility for their actions and their impact on both the resource, and the wider environment. We need fisheries rules that can balance rights against responsibilities. And we need to make sure that breaking those rules is sanctioned, not rewarded. Only in this way will be able to get both more precautionary decisions, and greater compliance.
At the heart of our Reform proposal, therefore, will be some radical changes to the ways in which policy itself is made. We have to move away from micro-managing Europe’s fisheries in Brussels. The EU institutions should focus on determining outcomes and setting targets, and leave the Member States to determine how those results are best achieved in the context of the sea basins where their fleets operate. This will also mean making many more decisions at the level of the regional sea basins, so as to ensure that our policies are appropriate, adaptable, and capable of balancing diverse social objectives.
Convincing all our partners – operators, stakeholders, civil society, Member States, and the other EU institutions – to follow us down this path will be a considerable task, and one that will require all our best arguments, all our political sensitivity, and a great deal of our energy.
Nor will this challenge let us off the hook of managing the CFP on a day-to-day basis. Throughout the process of the Reform, we have to continue to ensure that our proposals are in line with the most up-to-date science. The Commission will continue to propose appropriate catch limits that protect vulnerable stocks and guarantee the maximum long-term harvest. And we will continue to defend the cause of sustainable fishing not only at home, but in all those international waters where the EU fleet is present.
Fisheries cannot be isolated from the wider economic context. Nor can they be usefully seen in isolation from the other sectors of the maritime economy. That is why one of the major challenges facing us in the years ahead will be to achieve much closer integration of the CFP into the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP). In this context, regionalisation of the CFP as part of the Reform can only reinforce the IMP emphasis on the need for integrated sea basin strategies that embrace all aspects of the health of our seas and oceans.
In only three years, the EU’s Integrated Maritime Policy has made a significant impact on the way in which Europeans view our seas and oceans. The integrated cross-cutting approach has found an enthusiastic welcome among politicians, administrators, stakeholders and wider civil society. This is not hard to understand, as this new joined-up approach to policy making is all about multiplying benefits and lowering costs, by preventing conflicts, eliminating duplication of efforts, and forging new synergies.
The IMP was conceived during a period of economic boom, when traditional maritime sectors such as shipping and shipbuilding were prospering thanks to global trade. Today, the focus is on how this new approach to maritime policy-making can help get us back on the track to growth, while ensuring both economic and environmental sustainability.
Last year saw a number of major IMP initiatives, in particular the Communication on Marine Knowledge 2020. Showing how better circulation of maritime data could benefit all aspects of our maritime economy, this communication ties our work in closely to the EU’s strategic growth and jobs objectives. This vision is backed up by a roadmap and a tight timetable for turning the proposal into reality. One of our key jobs this year will be to ensure that maritime information sharing is achieved on schedule.
Another major theme for 2011 will be maritime spatial planning (MSP). We have already begun creating a common approach to MSP that would facilitate cross-border cooperation, at both bilateral and regional levels. To ensure that the tools we propose are properly integrated with other EU policies, and that the subsidiarity principle is respected, we will be launching a major impact assessment on MSP in 2011, including a public consultation. This will help us determine what the best options for action are, so that our proposals can be rapidly translated into results on the ground.
We will also continue to develop integrated sea-basin strategies, with the focus in 2011 on strategies for the Atlantic and the North Sea, along with a range of associated actions.
The Atlantic presents a number of unique challenges. Several of the regions concerned are geographically isolated and sparsely populated. Communication problems fuel a fear of marginalisation. But these regions are also home to some powerful renewable energy resources, in the form of wind, waves and tides. They can play a key role in reducing Europe’s carbon emissions and external energy dependency. And the EU’s Atlantic periphery is also a prime candidate for the practical support for cultural and linguistic diversity advocated in the Lisbon Treaty. Again, we will launch a consultation process to help us develop these ideas into a concrete strategy for the Atlantic that we plan to publish in summer 2011.
Looking back on my first year in office, I feel that I have been lucky to take up the job at this particular point in time. The challenges are enormous. But so are the opportunities. With a reformed CFP, and a dynamic IMP, Europe will be in a powerful position not only to defend the interests of its maritime economy, but to demonstrate to the world how economic growth and environmental sustainability can go hand in hand.
This article will be featured in the forthcoming edition of Public Service Review: European Union, where related issues will also be debated.