The European fisheries sector, represented by Europêche and MEP Linnéa Engström, a member of the Greens in the European Parliament, are to call on the European Commission to develop more effective rules to ensure that only fish coming from sustainable fleets, both socially and environmentally, should be imported into the European Union.
The announcement will be made during ‘Our Ocean’ conference, held this week in Malta.
The request is based on the fact that at present many fishery products sold on EU markets come from precarious fishing activities which do not meet the requirements of ecological sustainability nor respect the crew members’ international social and labour rights; requirements that, paradoxically, are required of the European fishing industry.
The request to the Commission considers it important to in the near future set a coherent legal framework, based on strict environmental and social regulations, applicable both to EU-origin fishery products and to those imported from third countries to the Community market, including free trade deals.
Both Europêche and Engström base their request on the fact that the EU has made significant efforts to improve the sustainability of its fishing fleets and has fulfilled the commitment made at the previous Our Ocean conference (2015) to reach a political agreement and create a new legislative framework for the sustainable management of its external fishing fleet, which will enter into force in 2018.
This new act harmonises the issuance and management of fishing authorizations to EU vessels operating outside Community waters and to foreigners operating in Community waters. Similarly, all EU vessels chartered in or operating in third countries through private agreements will have to apply for authorization under strict supervision, which will ensure a level playing field for all vessels operating outside the waters of the EU.
Likewise, this new act turns the European fleet into one of the most transparent in the world, since the Commission will gather all the authorizations in a public and open electronic register, a highly innovative aspect in the area of ??transparency.
In this regard, both Europêche and Linnéa Engström have asked other States to follow this example and make commitments in the same direction during the conference. The next step will be for EU member states to correctly incorporate this new regulation, which would only work, according to Europêche and Engström, if it is ensured that they all implement the Regulation, and therefore, urge the Commission to take action given the deficiencies identified in some of them.
Finally, Europêche and Engström advocate the creation of a robust system that discourages illegal fishing practices around the world, which in their view requires the collaboration of other States to close the markets to illegal fishing activity.
In this context, the request to the Commission calls for imports of fishery products from third country fleets to compulsorily include the number of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on vessels of a certain size, within the certificates of capture, to combat fraud.
The Our Ocean conference brings together industry, scientists and civil society from all over the world in search of joint solutions for the management of seas and oceans, in line with the Sustainable Development Objective 14, launched at the UN Conference in New York, held last June. Since 2014, this Conference has generated around 250 concrete commitments around the world.
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