Member states split over fishing subsidies

Commission seeks to remove payments to fishermen who are not fishing.

European Union member states are likely to reject a European Commission proposal to scrap payments to fishermen who keep their boats idle in harbour.

The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) is being adjusted for 2013-20 as part of the Commission’s proposed reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The Commission wants to eliminate EMFF subsidies to fishermen who keep their boats docked when fish populations are low and funds for fishermen who modernise their engines to make them more efficient.

Campaigners argue that these payments create an incentive for overfishing. Markus Knigge, an advisor to the Pew Environment Group, said: “If you overfish, [there is no] risk that you will face economic challenges as a consequence.”

When EU fisheries ministers meet on Tuesday (23 October), France, Spain and Portugal will lead efforts to re-insert these payments into the adjusted EMFF. Northern European states including Germany, Denmark and the UK support the Commission’s proposal. Each side has enough votes to block an agreement, so the most likely outcome is a compromise in which the payments will continue but with new conditions attached – such as making fishermen pay 80% of engine replacement costs.

MEPs views

The European Parliament’s fisheries committee, which will vote on the issue early in 2013, is likely to support keeping the payments.

Alain Cadec, a French centre-right MEP who is guiding the proposal through the Parliament, called the over-capacity of the EU’s fishing fleet alleged in the Commission’s proposal a “questionable premise”.

“The EMFF should support the replacement of antiquated vessels by new, more energy-efficient, safer, more selective and less powerful vessels,” Cadec said.

Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers, hopes that a general approach can be agreed at next week’s meeting, but a Council official said the northern European countries would not accept a deal that did not at least “limit the damage” by attaching conditions to the payments.