In September 2020, the EU Food Policy Coalition published a policy brief with recommendations, entitled Raising the ambition on global aspects of the EU Farm to Fork strategy. The European Commission’s Communication on Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy included a section on the external dimension entitled Promoting the Global Transition, which highlights that The EU will support the global transition to sustainable agri-food systems, in line with the objectives of this strategy and the SDGs. The paper of the coalition elaborates how the external dimension of the European Union’s F2F Strategy could be strengthened to drive a global effective and fair transition towards inclusive and sustainable agri-food systems, including in fisheries.
The brief first underlines that the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy ignores almost completely seafood production. Although wild caught fisheries and aquaculture are key drivers of global biodiversity loss, but cannot possibly be disregarded as they are both key elements for a sustainable food system.
This NGO coalition highlights that the external dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) should be addressed in the strategy, advocating for the EU fishing industry, including its external fleet, to transit towards low-impact fisheries by ending overfishing, banning destructive fishing practices, and eliminating bycatch of sensitive species. Low-impact fisheries means that fishers reduce their impact on the marine environment by using less energy per ton of fish caught, and by preventing the destruction of essential marine habitats, the bycatch of undersized and unwanted fish, and the killing of sensitive species like cetaceans, seabirds or turtles.
The coalition also demands that the future EU Fisheries Fund (EMFF) should not support measures that contribute to maintain overcapacity and overfishing, including by EU fleet fishing in third countries’ waters, and that EU funds spent under fishing agreements should be used exclusively for supporting the establishment of a transparent, environmentally, and socially sustainable fisheries policy in third countries, with particular attention to the needs of local fishing dependent coastal communities.
Beyond looking at the EU fisheries fleets activities, the EU Food Policy coalition paper proposes several recommendations which are crucial to promote sustainable fisheries in the external dimension of the F2F Strategy.
The F2F Strategy proposes to have ambitious trade and sustainable development (TSD) chapters in all EU bilateral trade agreements and to improve their implementation and enforcement with the appointment of a Chief Enforcement Officer in DG TRADE. The EU Food Policy Coalition remarks that First, such TSD chapters already exist in all recent EU trade agreements but are not legally enforceable. Second, TSD chapters do not address the adverse impacts of the agreement itself on human rights and the environment chapters are therefore not a sufficient response to the many challenges related to the adverse impacts of trade and investment policies.
The NGO Coalition recommends that not only the enforcement mechanisms of TSD chapters should be strengthened but also that the EU should integrate environmental and social objectives in a comprehensive and holistic manner across all trade agreement provisions, beyond TSD chapters, and ensure that no provisions in the agreement undermine the objectives and standards enshrined in the TSD chapter.
This echoes concerns expressed by many EU fisheries stakeholders, from NGOs and sector, which have been recently articulated in an advice from the EU Markets Advisory Council (MAC). This advice requests that all bilateral free trade agreements should include reinforced chapters on sustainable development that address specific fisheries concerns and that explicitly reinforce the requirements of the Illegal Unreported Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Regulation. Free Trade Agreements (FTA) should incorporate a binding dispute settlement mechanism (that include government-to government consultations, a panel procedure, public access to documents and the consultation of civil society), and, in addition, the possibility of applying sanctions in case of non-compliance by the third countries of international commitments.
The EU Food Policy Coalition also demands the EU to obtain commitments from third countries to meet European standards when they export agri-food products to the EU. In this regard, the MAC advice requests the European Commission to require the third country with which it is negotiating a FTA/offering GSP scheme to ratify and implement effectively key international fishery instruments, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Port State Measures Agreement and the FAO Compliance Agreement, and to adhere to the standards of the relevant regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs), and, in the case of GSP, provisions to allow the suspension of GSP+ status in cases where the provisions of these instruments are not applied; at a minimum it should allow for individual fisheries to demonstrate their adherence to these requirements. It also highlights that appropriate support should be provided to third countries and third countries producers in order to facilitate the implementation of social and environmental sustainability standards for seafood products.