Publication Name
Reuters
Author(s)
Charlie Dunmore
The European Union's executive set out plans on Friday for a new 6.5 billion-euro ($8.8 billion) fisheries fund from 2014 to 2020, which it said would boost EU coastal economies and improve the sector's sustainability.
The legislative proposals are part of a push to reduce the bloc's fishing fleet in order to take pressure off dwindling EU fish stocks, three-quarters of which the European Commission has estimated are currently overfished.
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The Commission also proposed withdrawing EU subsidies from those found to be involved in illegal fishing.
Environmental campaigners welcomed the new sanctions on illegal fishing, but said the proposals gave member states too much freedom to continue funding fleet modernization and thus maintain current overcapacity.
"The EU made two commitments on subsidies: to phase out subsidies that contribute to illegal fishing, and to phase out subsidies that contribute to over-capacity," Markus Knigge, fisheries adviser to the Pew Environment Group, told Reuters.
"With respect to illegal fishing, I truly believe that they do a good job, I really believe that they have advanced. But on capacity, I think that they are tweaking around at the margins."
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The Commission's proposals must now be approved by EU governments and lawmakers before becoming law, a process that could take up to two years.
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To read the full article, EU Proposes 6.5 Billion Euro Fisheries Fund Shake-Up on the Baltimore Sun website.
