Spain, France and other European countries with large fishing fleets are hindering negotiations that to reform the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), environmental groups complain.
Greenpeace, Oceana, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and BirdLife are among the NGOs arguing that the aim some countries is to delay enforcement of the CFP beyond 2014. Besides, the group claims, the fishing powers are allowing overfishing of the entire community fleet, according to reports by Europa Press.
For several weeks, the EU Fisheries Council, the European Parliament (EP) and the European Commission (EC) have maintained formal contacts among the EU's 27 member states to settle an agreement on the CFP reform during May or June 2013 at the latest. Greenpeace claims that 47% of fish stocks in the Atlantic Ocean and 80% of those in the Mediterranean Sea are overfished.
Although the parties recognize the need to ensure the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of the species and eliminates discards, they have opposing views on the pace of the implementation of tougher measures against overfishing. The Parliament is committed to a strict schedule for the Council to implement these restrictions while countries request a flexible and progressive implementation.
The environmental organizations issued a statement that "a group of countries, including France, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Greece and Romania, resist efforts to find a meeting point with the EP on key issues such as managing the fleet and discards." For its part, the Spanish Popular Parliamentary Group (PP) submitted a motion on the position of Spain on CFP reform, complaining about the "prevalence of environmental concerns" over the economic and social ones in the reform, for which "equal weight" should be given in view of regions like Galicia being "highly dependent on fisheries."
