Commissioner Joe Borg, responsible for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs, has welcomed the outcome of the 27th session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) of the United Nations'' Food and Agriculture Organisation, which concluded on Friday in Rome.
"The priorities adopted by the FAO Committee for the next two years are very much in line with our own international agenda. This is particularly the case with regard to the importance we attach to combating Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and on protecting the marine environment on the high seas. The support of the international community for this task validates our strategy as one which can bring states together, and as such achieve real progress in ensuring concerted action in relation to international law in these crucial areas."
The purpose of the COFI session, held from 5 to 9 March, was to define priorities for the work of the FAO's Fisheries and Aquaculture Department over the next two years. Commissioner Borg underlined the fact that COFI's conclusions on IUU fishing and the impact of deep-sea fishing on marine ecosystems confirm the results of the UN General Assembly of December 2006, at which the EU played a key role in securing agreement on strong measures to combat the damage done by these fishing activities.
Where IUU fishing is concerned, the FAO will focus on three priorities:
• Creating an effective international instrument for port state control
• Setting up a register to facilitate monitoring of vessels involved in IUU fishing
• Continuing the work in progress on how satellite-based monitoring systems (VMS) can be deployed to control illegal fishing
As concerns the environmental impact of deep-sea fishing, COFI confirmed the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in December by agreeing on a calendar for their implementation by the FAO. Commissioner Borg said that COFI had empowered the FAO to take real concrete action in these two crucial areas. It was now for FAO Members to act.
"FAO can count on our full cooperation and support in this area. I hope that when COFI meets again in 2009, substantive advances will have been made in these crucial areas for better governance of our oceans. The proposals on port state control are critical to the fight against IUU, and something which the EU has been calling for since the adoption of its 2002 IUU Action Plan. I am also pleased that we now have a timetable for action to limit the destructive impact of deep sea fisheries. For its part, the Commission will come up with proposals for effective measures in this domain in the coming months", Commissioner Borg concluded.