Spain Forms Alliance To Maintain Economic Aid Fishing Fleetff

By Atuna.com

This week, Spain formed an alliance with three other European Union (EU) countries to ensure the future of economic aid for fishing vessels.

The Spanish, French, Polish and Portuguese governments joined forces in Luxembourg to defend the continuity of subsidies for scrapping and updating their fleets.

As of Tuesday, the EU fisheries ministers reached an agreement for a new funding scheme, called the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), which will replace the current program in 2014 and last until 2020.

The Spanish government says a grant for scrapping vessels is necessary to meet the EU’s objectives of maximum sustainable yield. They say the aid has proved to be very useful in the last 14 years, citing the fleet’s reduction by 43% in the number of ships and 32% in power in that period.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest ocean conservation organization, Oceana, says the vote to continue the subsidies will fuel overfishing, including providing funds to replace engines on vessels. The decision also rejects the Common Fisheries Policy reform, the group says, because it puts measures back on the table – such as the scrapping of boats and temporary cessation – that had been excluded in the reform because there were misused by EU countries.

“Reintroducing these subsidies, which have been proven to be ineffective, will only succeed in wasting taxpayer money again and again and increasing the pressure on fish stocks,” says Vanya Vulperhorst, policy advisor at Oceana Europe.

The conservation group says subsidies should instead be spent on measures that ensure the marine resources are stable, productive and healthy. It is “appalled by the outcome and by the reckless attitude of the Member States.”

“The dire economic state of European fisheries has turned the majority of fisheries ministers from decision makers into fundraisers, aiming at getting their hands on as many subsidy schemes as possible,” says Xavier Pastor, Oceana Europe’s executive director. “Instead of realizing that the direct fleet subsidies of the current financial mechanism have been a failure, they cling to old habits, the very same that have led to the economic, social and environmental crisis of fisheries.”