The marine environmental organisation has concerns about the proposal for subsidies package to tackle the fuel crisis in the fisheries sector.
Oceana welcomes the decision of the European Commission not to include the increase of de minimis aid up to €100,000 Euros company in a package of subsidies provided to the fisheries sector but is alarmed at other "harmful" subsidies which could be introduced.
Today, the European commission presented a proposal with various measures to tackle the fuel crisis in the fisheries sector, which is expected to be agreed by Ministers on 15 July.
Oceana economist Anne Schroeer comments: “De minimis subsidies ar mostly provided as fuel subsidies – they are a classical example of a bad and short-sighted policy measure. Fuel prices keep on rising and fish stocks are depleted – fuel subsidies and other operational subsidies do nothing to treat the underlying problem of chronic overcapacity of the European Union fleet and instead directly contribute to further overfishing.”
However, Oceana is alarmed at the proposals for partial decommissioning schemes for fishing vessels where there is the possibility to reallocate 25% of the fishing capacity “permanently withdrawn” to new vessels. The organisation says that this would discretely reintroduce so-called harmful subsidies for vessel construction, which were rightly phased out during the Common Fisheries Policy reform in 2002.
Oceana is also disappointed that the opportunity was not taken to propose measures to provide incentives for fishermen who wish to move away from environmentally damaging types of fishing, which are often those which are the most fuel intensive, such as trawling.
Oceana is also urging ministers to ensure that all measures are tied to programmes promoting capacity reduction and a change to more selective and less environmentally damaging fishing gear.
