THE EU maritime affairs commissioner has warned against “scaremongering” about the future of the new European Common Fisheries Policy.
“Safeguards” will ensure the Irish fleet does not suffer under a controversial new proposal to introduce mandatory transferable quota rights in coastal member states, Maria Damanaki said.
Ms Damanaki, who is on a two-day visit to Ireland, told the Institute of International and European Affairs yesterday that she was aware the new proposal was a “sore point” for Ireland.
The proposal is vehemently opposed by Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney, who has warned that “large European conglomerates” could register in Ireland and buy up our fish quota, landing catches abroad.
Under the system, fish quotas would be allocated as “tradeable commodities” to private individuals and companies for at least 15 years and those holders would be permitted to sell the quotas on.
Mr Coveney, who met Ms Damanaki yesterday, forecast that thousands of jobs could be at risk here if the system was brought in under a revised fisheries policy in 2013.
The seafood industry here employs almost 12,000 people and contributed more than €700 million to the economy last year.
Ms Damanaki acknowledged at the institute that Ireland “suffers tremendously from the present economic juncture”.
“Trust me, I can understand from my own experience how the Irish people must feel today,” the Greek commissioner said.
“I also know that this feeling of uncertainty is something that European fishermen have had to cope with since well before the recession.”
Ms Damanaki added that in spite of measures to decommission vessels, at a scrapping cost of over €906 million between 2000 and 2006 alone, the EU’s capacity was still increasing annually by 3 per cent. The “inconvenient truth” was that 75 per cent of stocks were overfished and modelling exercises indicated that only eight of some 136 fish stocks would still be at sustainable levels by 2022 if nothing changed.
“Basically we have been fishing too much. We have been carelessly throwing away unwanted catches. And we have let our fleet become obese,” Ms Damanaki said.
A 2008 study by the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, The Sunken Billions, had shown the difference between the potential and the actual net economic benefits from global marine fisheries was about $50 billion (€37 billion) a year.
“If we rebuild fish stocks, we can capture a substantial part of this huge economic loss,” she said.
Fianna Fáil MEP Pat the Cope Gallagher expressed “deep disappointment” that Ms Damanaki had not been able to meet representatives of small island communities during her two-day visit.
