Posted: Thursday 31st January 2013 by Joan
Saithe- Paul Naylor
Next week's vote provides the opportunity to make history and set European fisheries back on a sustainable path, ending 40 years of failed EU fisheries management.
The start of 2013 has seen us very busy with national policy- particularly related to the current DEFRA consultation into designation of Marine Conservation Zones in English and offshore Welsh waters (find out more here). I will be updating this blog with information about how this campaign is going in the upcoming weeks.
However, we have also been keeping an eye on activities in Europe, with the upcoming MEP vote on the reform to the Common Fisheries Policy. The last blog post, just before Christmas, talked about progress made towards achieving a sustainable and effective fisheries policy. The Fisheries Council agreed to very promising text in this vote, seeking to end discards and overfishing and to give some priority access to low impact fishers.
This was only one step in the process to deliver a better Common Fisheries Policy. Next Wednesday, 6th February, all 754 MEPs will be voting on the text proposed by the Fisheries Committee. For the first time, the European Parliament is a co-legislator on the CFP- MEPs, along with the members of the Fisheries Committee have joint leadership to deliver a policy that we hope will lead to long-lasting benefits for fishing communities, consumers and the marine environment.
As part of the OCEAN2012 coalition, we are writing to all 754 MEPs, urging them to endorse the key commitments made by the Fisheries Committee before Christmas. We want them to endorse a Common Fisheries Policy that has sustainable fishing at its heart, that sets effective, sustainable quotas and that commits to recovery of our marine environment.
This vote has the opportunity to make history and set European fisheries back on a sustainable path, ending 40 years of failed EU fisheries management. Let’s hope the opportunity is not squandered.