Whilst the Integrated Maritime Policy is getting into full swing, the fisheries sector is in the midst of major change with the reform, launched in April 2009, of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) ⁽¹⁾. But the sector is not going well and, to ensure its survival over time, it will be necessary to resolve issues as difficult as the safeguarding of fisheries resources, the reduction of overcapacities, the development of new activities, such as aquaculture, while ensuring that professionals in the sector can either pursue their activities in a sustainable way or have good training and retraining conditions or retire. This is a redeployment that will have to be inserted into the expanded dynamic of the IMP and to take account of the essential principles defined in that.

Most of these principles are common to the two policies. In the first ranks of those there is thus the approach based on ecosystems, safeguarding and restoring natural resources, and managing stocks according to the balanced maximum catch. The IMP also envisages intervening in the fight against illegal fishing (surveillance), the improvement of the security and working conditions of fishermen (social dimension), the development of an environmentally and economically viable aquaculture to respond to the increase in demand for sea products and, finally, the development of research into oceans to ensure better and more balanced management of them and to address the effects of climate change on the marine environment.

“The Common Fisheries Policy must be totally integrated into the Integrated Maritime Policy, of which it is a major element,” insists Cesar Debén, director of fisheries at the European Commission (DG MARE). There is a lot at stake, he stresses, pointing out that it is about giving fishing the place that it should have in a developing maritime economy. This implies that “it is totally taken into account,” in particular in the framework of the management of maritime space and the allocation of soils. This element is particularly important, adds Debén, in particular to allow for the necessary and harmonious development of aquaculture. Here it will be necessary, he insists, “to demand from member states that they set aside a place and funding for aquaculture in the framework of a real maritime space planning. If not, things will become arbitrary and we will move towards conflicts of interest in the use of maritime areas”. Putting his finger on the sensitive issue of state aid, he adds that “it will be necessary to make the possibility of granting aid conditional upon exemplary planning”. It is to be noted that the issue of the necessary funding for the maintenance, development and/or reorientation of activities related to fisheries as well as the place to reserve for fisheries in the allocation of different EU funds will absolutely have to be addressed both in the framework of the new CFP and in that of the IMP.

GOING NOWHERE

The environmental organisation Greenpeace is not satisfied. It considers the progress made towards incorporating environmental considerations into maritime policies and more particularly into the CFP is insufficient. Both the IMP and the CFP need that to happen. The NGO points to the requirement for environmental sustainability and social equity as the basis of a ‘balanced’ management of maritime activities. It calls on the EU to create rules and incentives to reduce the overexploitation of resources, improve the efficiency of maritime sectors and replace current products and practices with sustainable alternatives wherever possible. Better still, in order to really protect the marine environment, the EU should directly tackle the threats instead of merely managing the effects of human activities, adds Greenpeace. A maritime policy worthy of the name should therefore strengthen the controls on all human activities and their impacts on marine ecosystems rather than trying to control these ecosystems.

⁽¹⁾ COM(2009)163 final