The proposed total ban on driftnets in the Baltic from Jan 2008 has effectively been blocked for the time being by the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament (EPFC) until there has been “an assessment of the effects of using driftnets and other entangling gear on the sea mammal population”, reports Peter O’Neill.
The study proposal was accepted by Commissioner Joe Borg and this removes the risk that a full-blown dispute procedure could be triggered by the EP with the Commission and members of the Council of fisheries ministers.
The committee's report, voted through by the EP at its sitting on October 13, was drawn up by Polish MEP, Professor Zdzislaw Kazimierz Chmielewski. It reflects a significant power play by the 10 new members of the EU. They, particularly the Baltic states, had demanded a fresh examination of all Baltic proposals, because they said those which had been on the table earlier had been put together before they had joined the EU in May 2004.
It seems the data had also been sourced mainly from the governments of the old EU 15 and the voices of fishermen and processors had not been heard.
Prof. Chmielewski, with the formal, unanimous backing of the Fisheries' Committee, basically said the data for the earlier proposals (e.g., for cod-end gear) had been one-sided. His diplomatic wording was: “…. consultations with the new Member States were [believed to be restricted] in the main to those involved in fisheries administration”, he said.
The professor also told the
EP: “...consultations with representatives of the fishing and processing sectors are also necessary. Experts in these sectors have repeatedly painted a black picture of the situation for fishermen in the southern Baltic, and part of the proposal for a regulation has been firmly rejected.”
Significantly, this EP block, on what he called a controversial subject, does not seem to be for political reasons but because the 63-year-old professor and the EPFC want hard data, not lobbying from different interest groups in the EU member states. The Commission proposal, known as Article 12, was a straight ban on using driftnets in the Baltic or holding them on board ship from 1 Jan, 2008. The EPFC added the study amendment.
Handful of mammals
His fresh report, during which he said he had consulted the industry, ministers and officials in different states, also stated that: "Over the last 50 years in the southern section of the area, barely a handful of sea mammals have been caught in this equipment. Furthermore, technical doubts have been expressed as to whether said salmon driftnets are especially dangerous to porpoise. According to [the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas] ASCOBANS, all entangling equipment, and therefore also cod fishing nets, can cause death," Chmielewski said. Yet cod nets were not mentioned in the proposed 2008 ban, only driftnets, he pointed out.
An EU Commission analysis in 1998, on the reasons it saw for banning driftnets, said that Finland, Sweden and Denmark then had around 350 vessels operating in the Baltic and catching salmon with driftnets.
Seven years later, Chmielewski told the EP that while it was "true that the abolition of this sort of equipment,….would [now]prevent around 60 Polish shipowners from fishing for salmon ", he also said "worrying reports…..of the declining porpoise population calls for particular prudence and a thorough examination of this problem.
"…the issue of the Baltic fishermen's justifiable fears about their future requires remedial action, and in particular serious attempts to establish the real state of affairs. An evaluation of the effects on sea mammals of using driftnets and other entangling equipment should be carried out up to 1 January 2008. The results of this thorough evaluation would then determine the final decision as to the continued use or withdrawal of driftnets," he told Parliament.
