Posted on 04 December
2009 - Brussels, Belgium: Europe poured
€34.5 million of EU taxpayers’ money into
increasing and modernizing
its oversize bluefin tuna fleets over the
very period it was coming to concede that
excess fishing capacity was a key factor
in overfishing and illegal fishing of collapsing
bluefin stocks.
The information on 2000-2008
payments to the bluefin tuna fisheries was
provided this week in response to a September
question from Raül Romeva i Rueda,
a Spanish Member of the European Parliament
(MEP) with the ‘Iniciativa per Catalunya
Verds’, part of the European Greens.
The delayed response
meant the information was not available
for November’s meeting of the International
Commission on Conservation of Atlantic Tunas
(ICCAT), which witnessed several heated
discussions on the reduction of fishing
capacity
Rueda was told that
the largest portion of the money - €23 million
- was aid for the construction of new boats
including modern purse seiners (industrial
high-tech vessels with purse-like nets that
scoop up large amounts of tuna).
Some €10.5 million went
into the modernisation of existing vessels
while, in stark contradiction to recent
EU rhetoric about the need to reduce the
size of the fleet, only €1 million went
into decommissioning boats, all of which
were smaller artisanal vessels.
"I am shocked at
the scale of subsidies "
The real level of subsidies
is likely much higher, with unknown additional
sums being pumped into the bloated fleet
by EU member states.
Spanish boat owners
were the largest beneficiaries of the 611
vessels involved, with the remainder shared
between fleet owners in Cyprus, France,
Greece, Italy and Malta.
Overcapacity has been
identified as a key factor in catches that
in 2007 were estimated at twice the legal
levels set by ICCAT largely as a result
of EU lobbying to be around twice the prudent
levels advised by ICCAT’s scientists.
Average catch size of
Atlantic bluefin tunas fished in the Mediterranean
Sea reduced by half during the period -
for example in Spanish waters average catch
size in 1994 was 159 kg, whereas by 2009
it was only 77 kg. These declines have been
interpreted as indicating the dying out
of reproducing tunas, and if such trends
were to continue this could lead to the
wiping out of the entire spawning population
as soon as 2012.
“I am shocked at the
scale of the subsidies given to the bluefin
fleet,” said Rueda. “This shows clearly
the hypocrisy of the EU, which insists on
the need to conserve fish stocks while simultaneously
encouraging the rapid expansion of a fleet
that was already too large.”
The European Commission’s
response states that “the number of Community
vessels licensed to fish for bluefin tuna
in 2009 was 859 vessels or 52,553 Gross
Tonnage (GT)”, a much larger capacity than
the EU’s designated 2009 catch quota of
12,400 tonnes.
“It is a scandal that
perverse EU subsidies have helped create
a Frankenstein fleet continuing to aggressively
target a collapsing species,” said Dr Sergi
Tudela of WWF. “European citizens have given
a gift of 34.5 millions Euros to the bluefin
tuna industry which has resulted in the
collapse of an ancient fishery, and what
will happen next?"
“WWF strongly demands
that no more EU public money be pumped into
this business.”
Mismanagement of the
bluefin fishery has fuelled moves to have
international trade restrictions placed
on Atlantic bluefin tuna at the forthcoming
March meeting of parties to the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES) in Doha, Qatar.
