Fishers across Europe have staged a week of protests against an EU action plan that they say will put jobs at risk.
Workers are protesting against the Commission’s ‘Protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries’ which, amongst other measures, urges member states to ban bottom trawling.
The week-long action culminated on 9 May, Europe Day, when fishers sounded their vessel horns in a distress call to signify that the sector is slowing disappearing.
“We cannot further tolerate policies from the European Commission that put our way of life and future generations in danger,” said sector representatives.
“If we continue like this, we will only be able to consume seafood products from third countries, whose environmental and social standards are almost always lower than those of the EU.
“It is time for the EU to rethink where it wants the seafood to come from,” they continued.
Representatives from the European Bottom Fishing Alliance, the European Transport Workers’ Federation, EAPO and Cogeca are arguing that the action plan will threaten a quarter of Europe’s seafood production along with 7,000 vessels and 20,000 fishermen and women.
They point out that almost all EU stocks in the Atlantic are now sustainable, greenhouse gas emissions have been cut by 40% and thousands of square kilometres are already closed to bottom fishing.
In the western Mediterranean alone, days at sea of bottom trawlers has been reduced by 30% in the last four years, already putting livelihoods at risk, they say.
