The European Movement welcomes the publication of the New Economics Foundation’s (nef) report on discarding fish. In order to preserve what is a valuable renewable resource, we agree with the report’s conclusion that, given the current economic and environmental circumstances, any waste of resources or harm to scarce fish populations would be unwelcome.

 

The European Commission presented its proposal for a reform of the Common Fisheries Policy on 13 July 2011, which includes a discard ban for some commercially valuable “quota” species.

 

The nef report presents evidence for the positive effects of a discard ban, and suggests that while initially fishing industries’ profitability might face short-term decline as a consequence of discard bans, empirical evidence suggests that these effects are temporary. Several stocks in the North Sea and the Northeast Arctic which have implemented such bans suffered unprofitability for just four years and are now amongst the most prosperous in the world.

 

The European Movement welcomes the reforms proposed by the Commission as a step towards more sustainable and effective fishing practice. We do, however, acknowledge the nef’s critical argument that the approach forwarded by the Commission is incomplete, as it fails to address the problem of widespread discarding of non-quota species. The European Movement feels that the Fisheries Ministers and MEPs can play an important role in supporting the EU’s institutions in implementing further effective reforms.

 

We applaud the report’s suggestion for more sustainable solutions, as often an overemphasis on the creation of markets for new species - while preventing the wasteful practice of discarding - can exacerbate the overall problem of overfishing.