Committee on Fisheries Ordinary meeting
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PECH European Parliament
Follow its sittingsStéphanie Yon-Courtin
The survival of our fishery sectors and of the maritime environment is, of course, closely linked to careful planning. So I'm grateful to all the shadow reporters and all the teams for their constructive work on this dossier, on this file, and I thank you very much for all your support. Thank you very much, Miss Yonkorta. We'll move on to the vote, beginning with the compromises. First of all, compromise three.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Those in favor? Those against. Abstentions? Carried. Compromise for?
Those in favor? Those against? Abstentions ? Carried. Amendment 124.
Those in favor? Those against? Abstentions ? Carrot. Moving on now to Compromise 5.
Those in favor? Those against? Abstentions carried. Compromise six, those in favor? Those against?
Abstentions carried. We now move on to amendment 178. Those in favor of 178. Against? Abstentions?
We'll check that. 178, the vote is open. Sorry, if I've made a mistake, it's my fault. It's 178 and it's 168. Sorry, I said 178, but it's 168, I think.
Just wait one moment while I check. Sorry. It's 168. So we're going to vote on amendment 168 again, just to make sure that we all know what we're voting for. So those in favor of 168.
Those against? Abstentions? We'll have an electronic check on that. So 168, the vote is open for an electronic vote. The vote is closed.
Carried. 13 in favor, 10 against, three abstentions. So that is carried. Now we move on to 100, and now it's 178. Those in favor?
Those against? Abstentions? Carried. Moving on to 2, 5. Those in favor?
Against? Let's check. So 2 4 5. So we quickly have an electronic check. The vote is open.
Vote is closed. Carried. 15 in favor, 12 against. We now move on to Compromise 1. Those in favor?
Those against? Abstentions? Carried. We now move on to amendment three. Those in favor?
Against. We'll have a check on that. Let's quickly open the electronic vote on amendment 3. Amendment three, the vote is open. Vote is closed.
That falls 12 in favor, 15 against. So that's rejected. We now move on to Compromise two. Those in favor? Those against?
Isabelle Le Callennec
Now move on to amendment 53. 53. Those in favor? Against. Abstentions.
We'll have an electronic check very quickly on 53. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Carried. 11 in favor, 9 against, and 7 abstentions.
We now move on to 54. Those in favor? Those against? Carriage. We now move on to number 60.
Those in favor? Against? Rejected? Abstention, sorry, I forgot to ask. So that's rejected.
Moving on now to 7. Those in favor? Those against? Abstentions carried. Moving on now to 180.
Those in favor. Those against? We'll have a check on that. So electronic vote on 180. The vote is open.
The vote is closed. Carried. 13 in favor, 12 against, and 2 abstentions. So we now proceed to the final vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed. 24 votes in favor, one against, and two abstentions. So congratulations, Madame Yon Cortin, and congratulations to the Renu Group. So we now move on to the vote on the multi-annual plan for the Baltic Sea and ways forward. As you know, this report was assigned to the Green Group, and our colleague, Isabela Leuven, was appointed rapporteur.
The report was presented to the PECH Committee in November, and 17 amendments were tabled. Thanks to the efforts of the rapporteur and the shadows, five compromise amendments have been elaborated. So let's move directly to the vote. So, taking it slowly and calmly, we'll begin with Compromise Amendment four. That can be done by a show of hands.
So we're going to vote now on Compromise 4. Please show those in favor. Against? Abstentions? Sorry.
I think we should check that. So the electronic vote is open on compromise 4. The vote is closed. That's carried. 14 votes in favor, 12 against, and 1 abstention.
Moving on then to compromise to. The vote is open. Votes in favor. Against abstentions, we'll have an electronic check on compromise, the vote is open. The vote is closed.
Carried. 14 votes in favor, 11 against, and 2 abstentions. Now that's been adopted. We move on to Compromise 5. Compromise five, those in favor?
Those against? Abstentions? Carriage. Now compromise three. Those in favor?
Against? Abstentions? Carried. That brings us to the vote on compromise one, which we will vote on by show of hands. Those in favor?
Those against? Abstentions? Carried. And we now move on to the final vote, which we will do electronically, for a roll call. So the vote is open.
The vote is closed. And that is carried, 15 votes in favor, 6 against, and 6 abstentions. Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Isabelle Le Callennec
To the Green Group for that successful report. And now we'll proceed to the next item on our agenda. So moving swiftly on, because we do have a very heavy agenda today. So thank you for your work on the votes. And as you know, the next item, we'll begin with the next item now, which I'm waiting a bit just for things to settle down again.
Speaker 5
So, you know, anybody who is going to leave can leave quietly and quickly, and then we can move on with our meeting. Well, I think now we can get started. If people could quieten down, please. We will turn to our item on measures to address increased fuel prices due to the geopolitical situation in the fisheries sector. As you know, fuel prices have been shooting up as a result of the geopolitical situation.
Isabelle Le Callennec
And as we know, fuel is one of the largest operating costs for the European fishing fleet, which means that rising oil prices due to geopolitical instability put severe pressure on the economic viability of the fishing fleet. I would like to welcome the representative of the Commission, Mr. Varunstaike from DG Mari to present the short and long-term measures the commission is proposing to address the issue of surging fuel prices. So Mr. Neville, we will give you the floor.
Neville VARUNSTAIKE
Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning, honorable members. I would like to first apologize for our director, Stylianos Mitolidis, who unfortunately couldn't be here with you today. He sincerely apologizes for his absence, but I'm here to step into his shoes to give you a short overview of what the commission plans to do to address the fuel crisis that the madam chair has just outlined. The commission has been continuously monitoring the situation in the Middle East as it develops.
The increasing price of energy and, in particular, fuel due to hostilities in the region and especially the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has dire implications for business and the functioning of the current operating model in the EU, including the fisheries and aquaculture sector. We have been listening to the concerns of the sector and are well informed of the boats choosing to stay tied up in the harbor due to the huge increase in fuel prices, as well as precautionary stoppages in the Mediterranean because of their proximity to the hostilities. Just this Monday, the president, Van der Leyen, spoke about the crisis, and she emphasized in particular the need to protect vulnerable households and sectors from high energy prices and to reduce the demand for energy in the mid to long term, which in the case of the fishery sector also translates as facilitating the energy transition. This week, the commission has launched a consultation of the member states on a draft temporary crisis framework for state aid. The draft framework is targeted to address the effects of the crisis on some of the most exposed sectors of the economy, including fisheries, as well as sectors such as agriculture, transport, and shipping.
This framework is expected to be adopted by the end of this month. Further, and talking more about fisheries, support specific to fisheries and aquaculture operators under the MFAV will become available tomorrow. The MFAV has a built-in crisis support mechanism in Article 26, paragraph two, which the commission can activate in case of an exceptional event causing a significant disruption of markets. DG Mare started analyzing the fuel prices from the onset of the situation in the Middle East. There is now a demonstrated significant disruption of the markets caused by this exceptional situation.
This disruption, linked to the exceptional situation, is the legal requirement for the commission to proceed. As soon as this has happened, the commission launched the procedure to adopt the commission decision recognizing the situation and triggering the availability of this crisis support under Article 26 of MFA. Specifically speaking, the MFAV crisis support allows operators to be compensated for the additional costs and income foregone arising from the disruption caused by the situation in the Middle East. It also gives the possibility to provide storage aid to producer organizations, which can help secure stable market prices for their produce. The decision allowing member states to offer the support is expected to be adopted by the college tomorrow, so on April 16, member states will immediately be able to offer the support to operators as this support was already foreseen in most of the member states MFAP programs with exception of one.
Member states need to have a methodology in place to calculate the amount of support an operator can claim. They may want to explore for this from the methodologies they use for the COVID nineteen and Ukraine crisis when we also used the same mechanism. Member states would need to publish calls, select the beneficiaries, and disburse the support. The measures are retroactively eligible as of February 28, which is the date of the initial airstrikes in Iran, and will last until the end of this year. Member states can start implementing the measures with very little delay.
The commission will be fully available to support the member states in their next steps. Both the commission and the member states already have the experience of the same support mechanism from the previous crisis. Last one was triggered back in 2022 when the aggression against Ukraine from Russia happened. So we do have experience using this mechanism. As with the previous crisis situation, the commission underlines that this crisis illustrates again that sustainable business models and the energy transition remain pivotal for the resilience and competitiveness of the fisheries and aquaculture sector.
We encourage and support member states in using their MFAV programs to deliver the structural changes to the sector that will help safeguard jobs and protect the future of our fisheries. Thank you, madam chair.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Well, thank you very much. And now I'd like to give the floor to the members of this committee. I'd like to start with the EPP, Mrs. Caroline Neck.
Well,
Isabelle Le Callennec
You, madam chair. Thank you for putting this item on the agenda of our committee. And I'd like to thank the commission representative for the presentation. It's true that this is an energy shock and a financial shock, without precedent. This increase is affecting an already fragile sector.
It's gone through the COVID, the war in Ukraine, Brexit, and then all of the changes to the climate that affected the weather at the start of the year, particularly on the Bay of Biscay. And it has affected the bottom lines of our ships, particularly the trawlers. That's why they're asking for subsidies. They're the ones who use the most fuel. Also, the pay for fishermen in France depends on the results.
You have to go out to sea to have those results. So this is a sector which is really suffering a domino effect. You've got the transporters, you've got the wholesalers, you've got the fishmongers, you've got the canning installations, all of this, and then it goes right through to consumers and to restaurants. Now at this point in time in France, no aid has been found for fishermen or very little. That's why it's of the most importance to hear what you had to say this morning, Commission.
So we're calling for a consultation on state aid here. We think they are necessary. You've mentioned support aimed at the FEOPA. Well, we think that the question here is whether the FEOPA really is up to the task here or not. Now we understand that if we do look at the MFFA, yes, then that's going to be something which is likely to undermine other projects that should be covered by the MFFA funding lines.
But we think that in and of itself is a good first step. Now what you've suggested would be that we do use the MFAV, and France in particular will activate that approach. Now I'd like to point out, though, that these state aids, as you yourself said, well, the question that arises is whether or not, well, who's going to be the beneficiary and level. At now, as you know, we have written to Commissioner Okhotskotsky, and we thanked him for his efforts to try and deal with this situation. We mentioned the de minimis ceiling.
That was something that was mentioned in Ukraine, but it shouldn't be by a vessel. We think that you do have to actually have rather calculations for each individual vessel. Now, when it comes to the committee here on fisheries, there will be the report on the decarbonization and modernization of the fleet. In the medium term, we absolutely have to move forward on that front. Now, MPAF was something that has been set up for situations just like this: fisheries policy two.
Speaker 8
So again, another crisis. So we need to build on the efforts which we've started to modernize fleets and those vessels and their ships and their motors or their engines. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Madame Le Carlinic.
Nicolás González Casares
And then for the socialist group, Mister Gonzales Cassares, well, yes, the sector needs this help. The price of fuel has pretty much doubled since Trump and Netanyahu started this illegal attack on the abominable regime in Iran. So that's where this started. We've seen that the price of fuel has gone up, and we're trying to deal with a wave of discontent among our fishers and these irresponsible policies of Trump. We see that others are still defending Trump and Bibi, and they're the ones who are really causing great harm to our fishery sector.
We see there's a lot of hypocrisy around here. We've got different market measures, but to deal with this increase in prices, that's the goal, and to try and make sure that this doesn't overly affect the fishery sector via that approach. I think if you look at Article 26 of the MPAA, you'd see that there is a possibility to reprogram funds. It doesn't call for additional funds, though, as we say in Spain. Well, basically, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul here.
Sometimes we do see this criticized. Well, first of all, we were the first to take measures to try and deal with this specific situation. That was about a month ago, on March 20. We took measures to have compensatory measures to help the ship owners, and then we had the fresh fish tax that was suspended. So we have seen Spanish aid has been coming to the fore.
We hope that the commission doesn't throw us under the wheel here, because any aid they can come up with is not going to be enough in light of this conflict. We've got to do what we can do very quickly. We've seen there is a crisis with the prices. There's also then the problem of the structures involving decarbonization. Now for years I've been saying we need aid here.
We need European aid. We need European budgets for the decarbonization of the fleets. And if we'd actually gotten cracking on this back in the day when we should have, well, we could have avoided much of the difficulties now. And we've got to make sure that we do away with roadblocks to modernizing the fleets. Now when it comes to the new budget, we see this is €2,000,000,000 for fisheries.
Well, that certainly doesn't reflect what was found in terms of need by the commission itself and its study. We need up to €25,000,000,000 for the decarbonization of the fishing fleets. And you're calling for a reduction of two thirds in your proposed budget, so, commission. Are you going to come up with a new integrated strategy to present on the decarbonization of the fleet in line with the MFFs, which will actually give us the possibility to deal with the prices or the costs that are indicated? Secondly, are you going to do away with roadblocks which affect the common fisheries policy here for agriculture, so that we can renew our fleets and look at the different types of fishing capacity and the different types of materials that are required to modernize the fleet.
France Jamet
Dear colleagues, what's clear today is we can see the situation in the fishery sector is quite alarming, and the geopolitical situation in the Hormuz Strait is really threatening our fishers far too much. Many are going to go bankrupt. Now before we came to see ourselves with this problem, the blockade of the Strait, well, the sector was already in a crisis. COVID. Before COVID, it was already in a crisis.
For decades, our fishers have gone through hard times, and it's this accumulation of problems, of mistakes, of the Commission's failed policies which have led to the situation in which we find ourselves today. Now what seems very clear at this point in time is that this never-ending crisis that fissures have to face, since Brussels has been in charge of all of this, it really condemns the system itself, the system which the Commission created. The fuel crisis today will be the final blow for many. Now, dear colleagues, I think there's a lot of agreement here. We've got to change the common fisheries policy.
We've got to have true representatives for artisanal small time fishers. We've got to do away with windmills in the sea. They're useless, they would keep fishers from fishing in fishing waters. We've also got to wind up the system which the commission has imposed with its disconnected approach. We've got to, and we always have the same meetings.
We have the same debates. We always have the same comments made. The results are the same as well. So commission, I think, you know, you've got to look at what Einstein said. The stupidest thing you can do is to always do the same thing and think that the end result is going to be somehow different.
Bert-Jan Ruissen
Thank you.
Madam Chair. It is urgent that we address high fuel prices. When you talk to fishers, you hear that much of the fleet actually has to stay in port because it's not profitable to go to sea. So measures do have to be adopted. I am happy to hear that the European Commission is triggering the Article 26 crisis mechanism, that is, in fact, necessary to enable support measures to be drawn down from MFAT.
The question is, of course, how much budget will be available? Will it be enough to relieve the problem? Would it not be time to think about just increasing the budget available for this? And also addressing state aid rules, if I understand correctly, the commission says that fisheries are included in this temporary framework, that will come at the end of the month. What would that mean?
How would it help? What would it mean for fisheries? Perhaps the commission could go into more detail about what additional leeway this will allow for the fisheries sector. Overall, I think we need to think of more than just this. As well as financial compensation, we need to look into the possibilities of reducing fuel consumption.
And so there, I would ask the commission, why isn't the commission thinking of some kind of temporary waiver or derogation with a view to fishing vessels? Thinking of pulse fishing, for example, that's an excellent mechanism. If fishers could have the possibility, at least on a temporary basis, I think it should be on a permanent basis, but only if they could temporarily be allowed to use pulse fishing. That would allow large fuel savings and would be of enormous assistance to farmers to address this situation. So could you not at least have a debate about the pulse fishing technique as a way of, again, relieving fishermen from?
Stéphanie Yon-Courtin
Yes. Thank you very much. To continue now, Jan Corto. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Well, in our ports in Normandy to Corsica, you can see that people are getting quite hot on the collar even today. I mean, in Calvados, ports are being blocked. This is, of course, the outshot of the conflict in the Middle East. Many are working now at a loss or have just stopped fishing. So this is a whole sector which has seen its activities quite affected and quite menaced in the long run, too.
Fishers and the industry at this time do need our support. Unlike my colleagues at Le Colenic, I can't say that France has done nothing. A number of different countries, such as Spain, France, Italy, have taken measures to address the cost of diesel, and they've also tried to limit their impact on the fisheries. 5,000,000 has been made available for fuel subsidies, and we've also tried to help with the prices faced by the firms. But it's not enough.
Speaker 13
Fair enough. But to say nothing has been done, well, that's quite simply not true. We haven't done enough. Fair enough. But these measures need to be seconded by measures from the Commission as soon as possible.
I've heard what Mrs. Jaeme said that the Commission doesn't do anything worthwhile here. Well, how can we actually just look at our state aids and national programs? It's pretty clear that we need to make certain that we can't say to our fishers that the European Commission and the state aid don't help. Again, we do want to make certain that there is validation for the national aid.
Stéphanie Yon-Courtin
We've got to do everything we can on every front. We've got to make certain that regions also come together with exceptional measures. We've seen an example of this with Normandy and other regions in France. It's not enough. Commission, you need to activate the emergency measures.
Madam, you mentioned this. You mentioned the review of the temporary framework for state aid. We saw that at the April, and the mechanism for emergencies needs to be activated too. They're important, but they're short-term measures. We've got to find structural solutions through time.
The fisheries sector have to have an insurance approach adopted here, something which will make it better to protect moving forward. Now we also need to review our rules when it comes to the Common Fisheries Policy. We need to make sure that there's nothing on the way of modernization of the floats, fleets, and for decarbonization, to make sure that there's less of a dependency on diesel so that the future energy shocks don't hit so hard. We've got, we've seen what's happened with Brexit, with the war in Ukraine, with COVID. We've really time to get cracking here.
The commission's got to get going. It's really a question of maintaining this fisheries activity for our fishery sector, for the lives of fishers, for the integrity of our territories. And please, let's work together here. Let's not turn this into politics. We've got to see that this is really important, that we get it right for the entire sector, starting with our fixtures.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Levine. Sorry, Miranda Pass. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Well, let me come back to this commission.
Ana Miranda Paz
We've got this new world crisis provoked by the United States and by Israel, and it's had quite an effect on the lives of our fishers. Now the sector has denounced this incredible increase in the cost of operations, fuel for their vessels, and then the production price is going up so much. Our fishermen are in a situation which is ever more difficult, and many are on the verge of bankruptcy. We've seen ships not putting out to sea. That's happened in Galicia, where I come from.
And who is benefiting from this? Look at the commercial trades. There is fuel. It could be imported. Could be imported.
Is China importing this and insisting on lower prices? Are we seeing anything done to really trim down the prices? We see that they are quite happy with this. They're quite happy having higher prices. They don't want to drop those prices.
They're profiting quite nicely, thank you. And so it's great for speculators, not so good for fishers. So I turn to the commission and ask, have you thought about a taxes, a wind field tax, on the oil companies this time? They are the ones that are really undermining the sector. The ones that are coming out worse for the rare are the small-time fishers especially.
So this is a call for help. We got a call for help from our shipowners in Spain. More and more, they're in a situation where they really can't put out to sea and fish, if you look at the cost, particularly of fuel. So this is why we are calling for immediate action by the commission to punish those firms who are benefiting from this situation at the cost of our fishers. Yes.
Luke Ming Flanagan
Thank you very much to the commission. And some of it sounds positive, but in 2022, when this same support mechanism came into effect, small scale fishers in Ireland faced significant issues accessing these fuel supports. Many fishers reported that support measures were insufficient, delayed, or missed the target to help smaller boats, which led to them being tied up. As the fuel increases, and this is always the case, had proportionally greater impact on them as their profit margins are so much smaller than the larger boats. So what will happen this time to make sure that we don't have the same problem?
What I think we need is a differentiated approach so that any fuel supports that these small fleet segments can get, they can get the most supports. And these are the smaller boats to make sure that they can actually access these supports. And I think it's also important to point out that we urgently need an energy transition in this fleet, and any temporary supports shouldn't prevent fisheries reducing their needs on fossil fuels, which is causing the problem. And of course, then we've got the biggest problem, because no matter what we do here, if people like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu continue doing what they're doing in Iran and causing chaos for people all around the world, then we're gonna continue having these problems. And I think one of the number one things that we can do as members of the European Parliament is to appeal to politicians in America to impeach this lunatic, because he is making everyone's life worse.
And why is he doing this? Well, he's doing it to cover up for what he was in the past. We shouldn't pay the price for what that lunatic was at. And people might say, well, these aren't suggestions of what we should do for fishermen. This is the number one thing we can do.
Get rid of that madman. That's the number one thing we can do. We can also do other stuff, and we can learn from the past. But number one thing is to get rid of this man by whatever means is necessary.
Speaker 23
Well, thank you. We'll now open the floor to others. Now we hear from Miss Matos from the EPP. Well, thank you, madam chair. Well, this isn't a theoretical question here.
Gabriel Mato
We've gotten, we've seen that there are really severe effects in real time on fisheries and also affecting the fishery and the agriculture sector. The price of fuel has gone up about 70% in the last weeks, and the operating costs have gone above what most ships can earn. And it's been very clear what has been said. The ships are not putting out to sea. Incomes are falling through the floor, and this isn't something that is going to happen.
No, it's happening before our very eyes. I've heard what the Commission said. I think that they're right. The sector is facing structural problems, but also in the cost of fuel. It doesn't have enough investment in alternative technologies.
There are problems with the port infrastructure. And if you look at all these difficulties to attract new fishers into the sector. But the problem is not the diagnosis. That's not the problem. They've got that right.
The problem are the replies and the answers and the solutions. I heard what the Commissioner said. They're talking about Article 26 of the AMFA, and I think we've got to be crystal clear here. This instrument is very limited in terms of its scope by its very nature. To deal with a crisis of this scope, it's not up to the task.
Then also you've got the decarbonization aspects. Well, what the sector is asking for very clearly goes much further than just short-term compensation to deal with this. They're calling for immediate help, and it has to be flexible. Things need to be simplified, and there has to be better access to financing. We need to have access to state aid.
We need to have a framework which allows for the transition in the energy supply for ships. We can't just keep looking at structural crises with a piecemeal approach. If you look at fisheries, in the fisheries we've got to have a really far-reaching change of the vessels, of the infrastructure, and the economic model for the sector. And you can't do that with just very limited tools on a short-term basis. To conclude, we need to have an updated framework.
We need to do away with obsolete things, for example, the calculations of fishing. We need to have a realistic approach to calculating the fleet, which will lead to renovation. We need to have a fund for fisheries which is not being cut back, but was actually shored up to meet the goals. Now what the Commissioner said, having the 67% cut in the CFP in the next MFF is shocking. So it's quite simple.
We're not going to be able to decarbonize the fleet there. We'll just get rid of the fleet. That's not a transition. That's a failure. Fishers can't, in light of the costs.
They can't pass these costs on to consumers. Their margins are very tight. Many firms simply won't survive this shock. So the commission's proposal is they're willing to really apply their diagnosis to ambitious measures? That's the question.
Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Pallotta. Thank you, Mr. Mato.
Thomas Bajada
Thank you, chair. Rising fuel prices are hitting European fishers hard because of the ongoing geopolitical tensions, notably the war in the Middle East. And this affects all transport sectors, but small scale fishers are the most exposed and vulnerable. We have said many times that small-scale fishers are facing a difficult life to keep their livelihood afloat. Higher fuel costs directly reduce their income and make it harder and less safe for them to go to the sea.
For small scale fishers in Malta, the price of fuel has doubled in a few weeks, and the situation does not stop with fuel. At the same time, and also for various reasons, the price of bait has also increased. So all of this together is making it really difficult to continue working, and an already difficult situation is made even worse. The sector is under pressure. It's becoming less attractive for young people.
Consumers are also feeling the impact, with prices of European fish products becoming more expensive. And if this continues, many small scale fishers, like those who I speak to regularly, will have no choice but to reduce their time at sea, affecting supply chains and fresh food products for our coastal communities. So if the commission and Ursula von der Leyen will support big sectors in times of crisis, just like it will do with the aviation and energy sector, then it must do so clearly, directly, and without bureaucracy, also support our small scale fishers by unlocking urgent funding now like we have done through the crisis support of MFAV for COVID and in the war in Ukraine, but not stop there. Additional support is needed, and immediately, this must be done by giving flexibility to member states in state aid, and not only for the big sectors, but also help our member states assist our small scale fisheries. And this should not be done temporarily.
As I have said many times, we need to fully revise the state aid framework for fisheries because this is not working as it is right now. And our small-scale fishers are already struggling and are now the most exposed and vulnerable to this crisis, and therefore, they cannot be left alone. Thank you.
Yes.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
Well, thank you, mister vice president, mister Pasciante Matal. Yes. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Indeed, the fishery sector is going through a very difficult time. The never-ending increase in the prices has meant that our fishers are having ever greater difficulties.
And then the military situation in Iran makes everything worse. For example, in the region that I come from, the Azores, well, we're seeing that there's an immediate increase of about €0.18, even though we're getting help from the regional government. And we can see that the fish was about €18,000,000. It's just not sustainable. It actually is more economically feasible to not sit out at sea to fish than to fish for fishers. Then of course we don't have fisheries products available, particularly affecting the outermost regions.
So there is a possibility here then to activate the MFAM for fisheries in this exceptional situation. We have mentioned that, but I think it's a good idea. You're welcome. But I also should point out this means that there is going to be a reorientation of the funds. This doesn't mean that there is going to be more money actually going to the fisheries.
Fisheries sector is already suffering from under-financing. So we think that it's very important that we do look at this from a different point of view, and we obviously do need to put more flexibility in the state aides. We have to make it possible for fishermen to sail out with their vessels. The energy component is essential. And at the present time, it's not important for us or it's not possible for us to update our ships.
We actually fish about 70% of the fish that we eat in the European Union. It's an important sector to each and every person in the Union. And we have the monies which are set aside, but it's insufficient at present. And it can't, it has to be better at the European level. We have the national attempts and approaches, but we need more at the European level.
Sakis Arnaoutoglou
I will speak Greek. A month ago, together with my colleagues in the S and D, we had posed certain questions to the Commission regarding the developments in Iran and its impact on European fishermen. We heard, but we will repeat and stress it again that this increase in fuel costs is prohibitive. It's not just very high. It causes huge pressures on the European fishing fleet at a time of great instability in the Middle East, and we know that prices have a terrible impact on fishermen throughout the EU.
Let me tell you that coming from Greece, because I live in Thessaloniki, and in an area which is surrounded by the sea, I get a lot of messages from fishermen all over Greece. And what do they tell me? They tell me, Suckies are giving up our job. We're leaving. We're going to Athens or we go to bigger cities in the rural areas in order to survive, in order for us to be able to feed our children.
This sounds scary because this situation is ongoing, and it seems to be unending. It's a never-ending story. So one other thing that I'd like to stress is the following. If we want the know-how of the fishermen to go from one generation to another, this would be the worst possible message that we can convey to young fishermen who are sick, scared because of these blows that they have been dealt in the last period. Is Europe to blame for this?
No. It's the geopolitical situation that is to blame. But what are the reflexes of a Europe which wants to have cohesion, and which wants its rural areas to be alive and thriving and to offer prosperity. So if the regions, the rural areas of Europe, and it's like the body, the human body. So if our hands, if our fingers can no longer move, then will become disabled.
So if we cannot move our hands, this will then affect the entire body. So there is a dire need for solutions to be found. And we want clear-cut answers from the European Commission. So, which measures have been taken? How will we provide support to the member states?
How will we support operators? Is there a greater flexibility in state aid, a greater scale of interventions? Because, as I have stressed, it's a matter of survival. It's a matter of social cohesion and food security. And this, of course, is something that will evolve.
Thank you.
Pierre Karleskind
Thank you very much, missus Smith. I think today we can all agree that the commission has to do more, but there should be more coordination with the member states. At the moment, we have some European member states who are reducing fuel prices, reducing excise duty, and there are other countries who are refusing to do that, including my own. And that creates an uneven playing field in the European market. And everywhere in the EU, fishing vessels are tied up in ports, not active.
Francisco José Millán Mon
So more needs to be done. Please make Commissioner Cadiz aware of how serious and grave the situation is. Well, I mean, he has recognized that, but we need more than just recognition. We need rapidly coordinated European action in coordination with the member states. And I think it's a pity that my country's government is sitting on its hands and not doing anything right now.
Other countries are showing good examples. We need to embrace those examples. And alongside the MFAV, we also need to promote, in a technologically neutral way, fuel saving measures. We can't just allow fishermen to wait for the geopolitical situation to calm down, and fuel prices to come down, and we can't wait for the energy transition. This is all taking too long.
We can't wait for that. We have to give immediate urgent action and support now to our farmers, and the commission should keep an eye on keeping a level playing field and not leave fishes to their fates. Urgent intervention measures are necessary in order to achieve the survival of our sector. Thank you very much. And Mr.
Mianimon now has the floor. Thank you, Madam President. As has been said, the fishing sector has been through many critical situations. Now, as a result of the surging fuel prices, sometimes, this directly affects the economic viability of operators. And this puts in danger the survival of our fish and our food security.
It's simply not worthwhile for people to go out and fish with these costs. And so it's time for governments to act as a matter of urgency. The measures that have been adopted so far by some member states, such as Spain, France, or Italy, are clearly insufficient. It's just $0.20 off the liter. Inadequate, given the scale of the fuel price increases.
So these are insufficient measures. And also, this support is given after the event, as it were, to the fishers. So I think we need action and diligence from the Commission. And I want to sort of put out a few ideas for structural measures and cyclical measures. The situation is not new.
We had an example in 2022 of fuel price rises as a result of the illegal war in Ukraine. And here, too, measures are necessary. MFARF is considered the first line of action, and I welcome the fact that the commission is going to trigger Article 26 two of MFARF to compensate fishers for their additional costs. I think that's a good thing. And I think that vessels that are unable to fish should have compensation for this inability to operate.
And as well as MFARF, there are possible state aids that can be used. Just as we did in March 2022, I think we have to adopt a state aid framework that will allow for more flexibility, following the example of what we did on the invasion of Ukraine. If I've understood the commission correctly, they are going to take action by the end of the month, but I think we need to take action urgently, make it more flexible, to ensure that state aid can be given. And a third example, I haven't heard much about this, but I've stressed it a lot over the years. Why not reduce the VAT rates, which are very high in certain countries on fisheries products and fresh fish?
Given the high inflation that we're experiencing, why not reduce VAT on some of these products so that there isn't this additional burden, which penalizes fish consumption in some countries? But as well as these temporary measures, we need structural measures, excessive dependence on diesel by fishing vessels. There are three major challenges: the technological challenge, the financial challenge, and the regulatory challenge. We've seen a tragic cut, a swinging cut proposed by the commission for support to the fishery sector, and that is really hampering the ability to adapt in technological terms. And also, the concept of fishing capacity, we need to think about this in the context of a severe crisis.
Speaker 32
Need ambition. We need short-term immediate measures, but also we need to reflect in the medium and the long term how we can support the sector better. Thank you. Thank you. Renu?
Chris MacManus
Madam Chair, Carmen, and Commissioner and colleagues, urgent. It seems to be a word that the commissioner and Ursula von der Leyen no longer understand. The word urgent, it's really simple. But in actual fact, Ursula von der Leyen is now using the word fast. And I quote from her statement of two days ago on April 13, measures should be targeted to vulnerable groups timely.
Speaker 35
They have to be fast. The word urgent doesn't appear anymore. She says not in a year, but immediately. Listen. We need to wake up everyone here in this room, as I've stated before, and we need to make sure that the message goes back to the commissioner and the president of the commission loud and clear.
Chris MacManus
Targeting and triggering MFAT. If you can't pull the trigger, then let somebody else make the decision. Fishermen in Ireland can't stand by having their entire future depended upon a talking shop. And quite frankly, the talking is going on for far too long. We are now seven weeks into the war.
Speaker 39
Myself and my Renew Europe colleagues sitting beside me, Oi Ahan, we sat in front of a room full of fishermen in Castletownbere, the premier white fish port in Ireland. We heard the stories. We saw the crying. We saw them absolutely losing their life, fighting for their life. That's what they're doing.
Chris MacManus
So what I say is, if you cannot bring back the message to the commissioner and to President Ursula von der Leyen, then everybody in this room, do so today after we leave this meeting. And let's get on with this integrated approach for our fishing industry, whether it's big boats or small boats. Let's come together because we have power in this room, and let's make sure that our message gets back to the commissioner, because quite frankly, urgency doesn't seem to resonate in the commission. FAST, Schnell doesn't even seem to resonate. So look, I call on you, colleagues, and thank you, chair, for the indulgence.
Speaker 36
I call on you to protect our fishers. They can't take any more, particularly the fisher, the fishermen and the fisherwomen in Ireland. Thank you.
Thank.
Eleni Stavrou
Thank you very much, Chairperson. We know that it's very important for food security, but it's also a very important element of the economy of island communities. We know that we now have fuel that has surged, and this is to the detriment of the fishermen. So we need to take targeted and emergency measures to support the sector and to ensure the survival and feasibility of the sector. I had posed a similar question on this matter, and I'm very happy that it's now being discussed in our committee.
Speaker 38
Our fishermen have to face many challenges, like IUU, like overfishing, alien species, the cost of the green transition, and now the very high cost of fuel. So we need to provide financial support for fuel to the fishermen in order for them to have a lower operating cost, and in order for them to be able to have a smooth transition. At the same time, we must help invest in new technologies. This must be fully subsidized so we can have a new, modern fleet in order to be less dependent on what happens in the energy sector in the rest of the world. At the same time, we must try to enhance cooperation with the member states for the transition in the energy sector.
Speaker 37
We need to have a single energy market and common policies in order for the fishing sector to remain sustainable and to contribute to the local economy as it does now. Thank you.
Speaker 41
And now, very quickly, Ms. J'aime. Quickly, please. Yes, just one word. I wanted to respond to the French representative from Renew.
France Jamet
I had to leave the room for a moment, but I've been misunderstood. I never said the commission was useless. I said that the commission was actually acting against fishes, and particularly against small scale fishes and our food sovereignty. That was the point that I wanted to make, but the colleague who made these comments about me is not in the room anymore. Ms.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Lekanenik, would you like the floor? Yes. If you had listened to me, madam, I was talking about the aid that France is providing. Although it's only to the tune of, say, $0.02 in the euro, I mean, that's all the assistance that farmers get, they might well ask themselves whether it's worthwhile going to sea. What I was saying is that the commission is making proposals, but I don't see France taking them up.
So if now we leave this meeting with more clarity about the proposals the commission is making, then I think the French government should seize these opportunities, because the situation is dramatic today. So proposals are on the table. They've been put forward by the commission. So my question is, what is France going to offer to fishers now and the entire sector? There are proposals being put forward in France to reduce fuel prices.
I'm thinking in particular of the energy-saving certificate. So there's a very lively debate on all of the possibilities in France at the moment. But the French government's proposals, I don't think, are going in the right direction. That was my point. Thank you very much.
And now I will speak in my capacity as a member. First of all, I welcome the openness shown by Commissioner Cadiz in adapting or triggering Article 20 six-two of MFARF. So this is something that our sectors have been calling for, so my thanks for that. But as many speakers have said, this alone is not the only thing we can do. There are other measures.
And in the next MFF, we see that the commission is proposing massive cuts for this sector. And that is, according to the question, the viability of the sector. And this is the point that we are making. We need also more long-term measures to support the sector. So what we need to do is to raise the de minimis ceiling up to 300,000 at least per vessel, and not per company.
And there should be the possibility of raising the de minimis ceiling for investments in the future. And I think also we need to accompany these measures with robust measures. At the moment, there are vessels in the EU that have up to €1,000,000 in fuel costs for fishing in the high seas. And this is making life extremely difficult for this sector. Often, unfortunately, the only rational decision is to leave the vessels in port.
So at this time, Europe has to show the example, put measures on the table. I am grateful to the commission's reaction to MFARF. Maintaining a robust MFAT is crucial for the future, just demonstrates how useful it is, but also for the member states. In the case of my member state, Spain, they have reduced the price of diesel, but it hasn't really been enough, because the diesel compensation is 3x less than in 2022. And in fact, the situation is even worse now than it was then.
So we also call on a reduction of VAT on food. And the fishery sector was left out of other compensation measures for other crises in Spain. So all of these aspects need to be taken into consideration, and the European Union needs to show the example and take more serious and more effective measures that can be applied also by member states and regional governments. So I'll give the floor now to the commission to respond. We'll be a bit flexible with the speaking time because a lot of questions have been raised, but we do have to deal with other items on our agenda today.
Neville VARUNSTAIKE
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, honorable members, for all your interventions and questions. There have been a lot, indeed. I think a lot of the questions have been addressed in my intervention at the beginning, especially on what the commission is doing or plans to do. But I will try to group the questions in the interest of time. First, there were a number of questions from several MEPs about the current m five being too small or too limited to tackle the issue and that everything has been already programmed.
So this is more of the short term view. Indeed, well, each member state has already programmed the amounts in their MFAV national programs that can be used for crisis support, so that money has been planned for. No immediate national MFAV reprogramming is necessary to begin using this finance, so they could start doing it right away. Unfortunately, no additional EMFAAF budget will be available. So this is to address also the questions, of course, that more money would be needed.
However, there, I think not only the fishery sector is affected by this crisis, so it would require the whole of Europe and the whole of sectors approach, similarly like it was used with the RF. So, of course, this goes beyond Digimara's competence, but this has been raised several times and by the sector as well to us. Now when it comes to the current MFAV, so we have provided the tools to the member states, and they can decide how to deliver this money. So they would have to, of course, identify the priorities that they need to support, but it is really in the member states' hands to use the money that was allocated to them. This also applies to the small scale or the level playing field.
They have to identify what they want to prioritize. Now it is, of course, for the membership to decide if they will offer the support that we have enabled, as well as when and how. From our last experience, we saw in 2022 that even though the MFF mechanism was available, some members first chose to offer state aid support under the temporary crisis framework that was made available at that time. And this was followed by the MFF support to make full use of that fund first, and then finally, the MF of crisis support. So each situation is different, and each member state has different considerations at play when it comes to supporting the various sectors affected.
And now if we talk about the long term, of course, this is the short term reaction to crisis. We are using the funds that's available to us. But, of course, we need to think about the future because we see the crises are becoming actually more frequent than they have been before, and we find ourselves in a new crisis every three years. So indeed, we need to think of structural changes. So I think it's important here to mention the CFP evaluation that, as you know, will be coming out very soon, May, and that will look at how the CFP regulation as a framework regulation has been working for the past ten years.
And that, of course, also concerns the fleet, concerns the small scale. It concerns many different elements that have been mentioned by the honorable members. So we will start this discussion when the evaluation comes out, which will serve as a good basis to have the in-depth reflection on what structural changes need to be made and how. Also, on the energy transition that was mentioned by several members, it is an important element as well for the future CFP, the evaluation. And here, I would like to mention that this autumn, the commission will adopt the energy transition roadmap, which will be part of the Vision 2040.
And these are the elements that we plan to address in this communication, the package that is planned for September, 2026. And let me just see if I'm not missing anything. On the state aid, I think I've already mentioned that there is work already that started. But, of course, this is not DG Myers' competence. This is DG Comp, and all the questions would have to be addressed to them.
On the taxes, unfortunately, this is also beyond Digimar, and also, it's a national competence. So there, I know that some members have already applied some measures to reduce the taxes, but, of course, this is the national competence to say. Now let me just check if I missed anything. No. I think I haven't.
No? I think that's it. We tried to address as much as possible, but it was quite a dense discussion.
Speaker 42
Right. Well, very quickly, as we're short of time. Mr. De Beven, were you asking for the floor? Madam Chair, thank you very much.
Gerolf Annemans
I think that the commission's answer shows how sluggish all is. I mean, when you say that certain things are up to the member states, I'm very disappointed in the commission's answer precisely in a situation of crisis. If I hear that an assessment has to take place and that reflection is necessary and that we can talk about this again in September, then I think our officials will be submerged by then, if I can put it that way. I think we need immediate action. We need to see the commission doing something for the sector. We need action.
Isabelle Le Callennec
We need vigor. And when I hear an answer of this kind from the commission, I find this very disappointing for our officials. Would the commission like to comment further? No? Well, thank you very much.
We'll continue discussing this subject. This is not the end of it. And we call on the commission to continue discussions on this, and to come forward with specific proposals. And thanking you all for your statements. I would like now to move on to the next point on the agenda, which is the discussion of the presentation of the report of the opinion establishing the European Fund for Social and Territorial Cohesion, Agriculture and Rural, Fisheries and Maritime, Prosperity and Security for the period 2021 to 2034.
Mr. Andrea Franquera Rodriguez is the rapporteur for the opinion, and the committee responsible for the report is Banch and Reggie and Agri. We have a confirmation, though, a contribution to make to this report. So I will give the floor to Mr. Frauquera Rodriguez to present his draft opinion.
André Franqueira Rodrigues
Yes. Thank you, madam chair. To your colleagues, now over the last months, we've been pretty much unanimous in this committee when it comes to criticizing in a correct and very well supported way the rather weak proposal of the European Commission when it comes to the future of funding of the common fisheries policy for the 2028 EMFF. Now this is just calling into question the level of financing, which is quite disappointing. It's only one third of what you could currently find in the CFP or the MFF.
It's really the very structure and architecture and the way that the fisheries will fit into the social and territorial cohesion and rural policies. Now we have, first of all, the CFP, which is of the Commission's or the Communities' remit, and then we have 27 different national tools. We're going to lose visibility if we go down this path. We're going to not have predictability either, and this is not a good strategy for an essential sector for the food security of the European Union and indeed for its own strategic coherence. So that's why this opinion is once again an opportunity for us to, in actual fact, develop our policies to change the state of play when it comes to the Commission's proposal.
Now as the rapporteur, today I'll be suggesting a number of different changes. I think this is a very clear approach. First of all, fisheries, agriculture, coastal communities, they deserve to be treated with individual possibilities through this MFF approach. So my FICE priority was one of a structural nature. The specific sectoral measures should be taken out of the future regulation for CFP and to the European or the Atlantic Pact.
The MF can't be the only tool here. We need to have a specific tool which is robust, up to the task, and adapted to the specific needs of the sector. We have very strong arguments to defend our position here. If the Commission has shown that it is willing to make changes to the agricultural policy, and indeed the Commission is working on that front. But why wouldn't they do the same thing for our fishermen?
Why should they be disfavored in this current reform? We want to make certain that there is legal certainty and transparency here when it comes to fisheries policy. This is something that's got to be underpinned in the legislation for fishers. It shouldn't be put into an across-the-board approach. There are other things, too.
When it comes to agriculture and fisheries at coastal communities, we need to have them specifically recognized as our partners when it comes to developing national plans. I think the clear objective here is that we can't have policies for a sector and the coast without having those communities involved. I'd also stress the need to have a minimum amount earmarked, which is significant for fisheries and for agriculture. We want to make certain that this policy doesn't then run into competition with other policies at the national level, which would mean that, as we all know, there would be progressive marginalization. And for ultra purifier regions, think we should have $350,000,000 set aside for the Azores, for Madeira, for the Canary Islands and for Dantams in France.
We have to make certain that there is specificity reserved there in light of Article 349 of the TFEU, particularly when things that menace the blue economy and the fleet. Now the sector really depends on all of this. It's very important that we do have specific measures for national delegations, including support for associations of ship owners, without increasing fishing capacity, but with a continuity of the activity possible. And we have to make certain that the sector is ready to deal with the crisis. There has to be a possibility for specific aid to deal with specific crises, which we see is the case in other sectors.
So if you look at this, this is just in a nutshell what we deem to be the priorities here. I think that the committee has supported these types of measures. That's always been the case when we've discussed these types of measures. And of course, I'm very happy to discuss any other additional measures that some might deem necessary. We do have a fisheries fleet which is strong in the European Union.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Rodriguez. And now we'll hear from the Chavez Mestre de Mienfon. Thank you very much, madam chair.
Francisco José Millán Mon
And I'd like to thank Mister Rodriguez, the rapporteur, from the outset as the drafter of this opinion. I think that this is something which takes a look at the traditional funds which have been available via the CFP. I'd like to ask you a couple of things. First of all, when it comes to the amounts, we had the Council of Presidents for the and then we had the MFF for the interim report. We have numbers that come from that source, and again, there were amounts that were decided in that interim report.
If I've understood correctly, that interim report is going to be voted on in the Econ Committee, and part of that will involve the fisheries envelope in the MFF. There's the proposal for $2,000,000,000 and we're going to be calling for 7.3. So this parliament is supporting this sector in this situation, this sector in difficulties, and we certainly can't accept such a brutal cut as tabled by the commission. So we're calling for a substantial increase. We'd go above the $6,000,000,000 currently earmarked for or spent on CFB. So I wanted to share that with you.
Now, as has been said in the past, think that Mister Rodriguez will agree with me, we don't agree with the change to the architecture in the commission proposal. We see that the CFP is going to lose its specificity. That's the Commission's proposal. We're working to try and improve the proposal as it's been tabled. We agree with Mr.
Rodriguez, too. We want to make certain that we do have respect in international plans for the sectorial tax. This is all going to be debated here in this body and in other committees which are relevant, but many others don't really have fisheries on their plate, particularly. So I read through your proposal, Mr. Ruiz. I think a lot of what you've said is very interesting.
For example, to have the distribution of the InfEM4 fisheries earmarked, and then in the annex as well with the measures which will be then developed at the national level, and also with the possibility for crisis reactions. Well, crises are not one-offs anymore. We're unfortunately seeing that we've got wars, not just natural effects, but also man-made disasters are affecting us. We've got to redefine the definition of crises. We've got pandemics and hostilities.
We've got the weather, of course, is still there, but other things too. Again, crises need to be covered by the new regulation too. That hasn't been the case. We've been through a lot of crises in the last five years. I'm planning on tabling a number of amendments just to strengthen the approach here.
Nothing but strengthening. If you go back to the original proposal, well, we know that there's a very subordinated role reserved, a marginalization of fisheries within a bigger sea of agricultural policy. So we need to really stress what's specific to the fishery sector, and I think that Mr. Rodriguez will develop all of that. We're going to have a good text come out of this process, I'm convinced.
France Jamet
Yes. Thank you. Mr. Yamed. Mr.
Yamed, yes. Thank you very much, madam President. Well, Mister Rodriguez's proposal seems to us to be on the right track. I think it's clear for everyone that the budget proposed by the commission is simply unacceptable. And others have said, but we can never say it too often, when it comes to the financing, this drastic cutback from 6,000,000,000 to $2,000,000,000, well, it was most unfortunate and unwelcome at the time, but it's only even worse in light of the latest crisis. This will be a death blow for the sector.
And what we've heard from the Commission this morning doesn't really reassure our concerns. Now this rather fallacious argument that the Commission puts forward every time, to having this strange approach to the MFF, that this will get more flexibility to member states, but that's not a valid argument. Fisheries is and will continue to be the exclusive remit of the community. Indeed, the Commission will continue to impose its will and its specifications and rules willy-nilly. So having possibility at the member state level, what's left of that is basically to put in some public mandate to try and put out the fires lit by the arsonists at the commission.
So we want a fund which is specifically targeted and reserved for fisheries. And most of that envelope at the end of the day is paid by our taxpayers, by the consumers in Europe who are very attached to their fish and to small-scale fishery. And we need to take into account to a greater extent the specificities, which Mr. Rodriguez mentioned our outermost regions. That's something that is covered by our treaties, something that is also very important to our citizens.
Would say in France, just to give you an, we really need to shake the Brussels mammoth. I mean, we don't need to hear these justifications. No. We need action. We need something that actually defends our sector, which defends our fishers and our consumers, and we should not lose sight that there is food sovereignty at play here.
Let's not forget that. Thank.
Bert-Jan Ruissen
you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and many thanks to the rapporteur for his excellent opinion. And the thinking set out there corresponds closely to our views on this matter. When it comes to the budget, the Fisheries Committee has already adopted a position. And I'm happy to see that the Budget Commission has taken on board our position where we call for a considerable increase in the budget to €7,500,000,000. Of course, it remains to be seen what the final result will be.
It might be good if we can streamline our report. But I do have the impression that, broadly speaking, the budget committee is on the same line as us. I think it's very important that funds be earmarked in this regulation. But I wonder if you shouldn't go even further. In other words, should we not appeal as a fisheries committee for a fisheries budget for a separate fisheries fund, keeping it outside the NRPP?
I feel that our committees are our sector is treated as a bit of a leftover of the NRPP, and I wonder if we shouldn't completely cut to the core with this regulation. Just cut through it, and keep a separate independent fisheries fund. I would call for that, and I'll come forward with an amendment to that effect. And then the whole question of what the budget is used for, a lot of the management funds are used for all sorts of controls, government control, and surveillance measures. I think that the budget, certainly the €6,500,000,000 referred to by the rapporteur, should actually be for the benefit of the fishers and not for government control bodies necessarily.
So I think the wording needs to be tightened up there. The EU facility could be used for budget expenditure. So there could be other funds that could be used to support the budget government expenditure for implementation support for indirect and direct management rather than taking it from the fund for fisheries. And I agree with the rapporteur that we should try to transfer as many provisions as possible to the sectoral CFP regulation. That certainly seems to make sense.
And one last thought related to Amendment 28. Reference is made there to the Ocean Pact. This is made binding on MFAS, but the Ocean Pact is just a communication from the commission, so it's not something that can be binding. It's a strategy. It's a communication.
So I'm rather worried that in this way, we are making a mere communication, something binding in our regulation. I don't think we should do that, but I think we will have good discussions with each other on all of this.
Thank.
Asger Christensen
Thank you very much. I will be speaking Danish. Yes. Thank you for making that possible. The proposal which the commission has presented to us on the budget is completely unacceptable for fishers and also for those societies surrounding fishers.
Speaker 47
The MFF should be supporting our fishers and aquaculture. It should be sufficient amounts so that we can transfer fisheries to a sustainable sector. And let me just say this is an excellent draft of this MFF regulation. I think it's important that we increase the amount of budget allocated to fisheries, and it should be at least what we have currently. And in order to achieve that, we have to look at all possible solutions.
For example, to use interim funding from the budget. This proposal of moving the articles concerning fisheries and aquatic aquaculture to 435 and 62, moving those articles, I think, to the fishery sector, it's important for legal certainty and to make the sector visible. We also have to ensure a connection between effective coordination for the NRPP and the sector-specific regulations. Also, that would make it clear what the criteria are for beneficiaries and focus on the decarbonization of the fisheries fleet in order to guarantee a sustainable funding of coastal regions. And thank you to the rapporteur for saying what you said about the generational change in agriculture.
Speaker 48
This is a very important economic discussion we're having right now. However, I think the NRP regulation should not have minimum funds established for those kinds of projects. But I still think this draft is a good starting point. We look forward to working together with the rapporteur to have a really strong position from PESH for the future budget, and that's on Stephanie's behalf. Thank you.
Señor Alvin?
Mister Alvin?
Speaker 53
Thank you. Thank you very much to the rapporteur for an excellent draft, and we're looking closely. Some of the ideas we need to consider more in-depth when it comes to moving text from the NRP to a dedicated marine and CFP-related file. We will have to see how that plays out. I think our priority is basically to make sure that there's enough funding for us to have reached the objectives of the Ocean Pact, but also of the wider marine policies that we have concerning reaching good environmental status, and the need for transition to low impact fisheries, not only when it comes to low emissions, but actually also switching to different methods and gears that are less destructive to the marine environment.
Isabella Lövin
And all of this needs, of course, innovation. It needs to have test periods for some of these innovations. So there needs to be enough funding. So that's really for sure. But also, know that funding is limited at the EU level.
Speaker 50
Of course, member states should also put in the necessary amounts. What we would like to see is also the do no harm principle being in the text, which means that we should not give support out of the scarce resources we have, we should not give support to activities that go contrary to the objectives of the Ocean Pact or Marine Strategy Framework Directive or also the objectives of the common fisheries policy. But we should now see the urgency of the situation in many of our sea basins and make sure that there's enough funding to turn that really destructive, vicious circle around. I think also support to upscale and give added value to fish caught by the fishermen is something that is really important. And also supporting the small scale.
Isabella Lövin
And you have also mentioned the number of times the outermost regions, and I think that's also important to do. And to finish, we would like to see the same level of conditionality across the MFF files. And in this regulation, clearer requirements on Article 22 on what NRPs should contain should be added. Thank you.
Señor Flanagan?
Luke Ming Flanagan
Thanks to the rapporteur for your draft opinion on this regulation. It's a great start. We've already debated our many concerns with the new MFF architecture at length with the commission at last month's committee, and there's clearly a need for more debate because I don't think we're being listened to. We heard from the commission that they want to create an easier delivery model, faster payments on achieving milestones and targets, and a simplified architecture. And an example would be with the reduction of programming documents from 540 to 27.
But the question is, at what cost and with what funds for the common fisheries policy? Article 35-11 of the NRPP regulation lists important goals for the implementation of the CFP. It talks about supporting sustainable fisheries, marine restoration, the energy transition of the sector, more innovative and low-impact gear. But there is no ring-fence funding to support the implementation of the common fisheries policy. So we have absolutely no guarantees that the financial support will be there to achieve this in practice.
And I can see that you have provided for ring fencing of at least 6,500,000,000 for fisheries and agriculture, which matches the amount under the current MFAT. But the commission's approach places different national policy needs in direct competition for these funds, and even, I suppose, we have to be realistic with what we look for, but even in real terms, that is a reduction, and that's before the latest crisis, and what these repeated crises tells us is that ultimately we're on our own in the European Union for many different things. It'd be nice if it was different, and at the moment we think we're not on our own signing up to Marcusor, but who will be in power in Brazil in a few years' time, and who will we be depending on again? We'll be depending on ourselves. So the current proposal is not sufficiently clear on how the money for small scale fleet will be ring-fenced and how the fund under the NRPP would actually support a transition in the fishery sector.
I already mentioned this last month, but it's also worth flagging again how the European Court of Auditors has raised concern around the control of the funds and how they will be allocated and used. There's also a lack of clarity, finally, on article six on partnership and multilevel governance and who will control the design of the NRPP for each member state and how we can actually guarantee meaningful citizen and stakeholder participation across member states. In the last CAP, for example, small farmers organizations were able to influence the CAP, but we have no guarantees that small scale fisher, for example, would be listened to on the NRPP. I will be supporting the amendments of my colleague, Emma Faroe, who will be shadowing this file, and the amendments of other colleagues that reflect my concerns. But I'll say it again, it's a very good start.
Good work. Okay?
Speaker 56
And thank you to the rapporteur for your draft opinion, which we can support in a number of points, if not at all. The commission proposal is presented as a technical simplification of EU funding. In reality, it fundamentally changes how fisheries policy is financed. By integrating fisheries into a single national envelope under the NRP plans, the Commission removes the sector's visibility further and its priority. Fisheries will no longer have a dedicated financial instrument.
Speaker 54
It will have to compete with cohesion, infrastructure, and industrial policy. This is particularly concerning for small-scale fisheries and coastal communities, which already struggle to access funding and lack political weight at a national level. Without clear safeguards, we risk accelerating the further structural decline of the sector. In this context, the draft opinion moves in the right direction. The introduction of a minimum financial allocation for fisheries, which can be higher if we have our way, as well as ring-fencing mechanisms, are necessary to ensure that the sector is not sidelined.
Speaker 55
We also welcome the focus on generational renewal, crisis response, and the recognition of coastal communities. These are concrete needs that must be addressed. However, we should be careful not to overcorrect. Protecting fisheries must not lead to further centralization or additional layers of control. Member States must retain real flexibility in how they support their fisheries sectors.
Thank you.
Señor Mato?
Gabriel Mato
Yes, Mr. Mato. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, first of all, I'd like to thank the rapporteur, Mr.
Rodriguez, for his draft opinion. I think that it's a very positive step forward. I like its general thrust. It very clearly indicates the central risk that we face, and that would be that this architecture that they proposed for the MFF and then using the national plans is likely to indeed lead to an undermining of the CFP. It will also provide fewer financial guarantees.
You can't just think the CFP is some residual within the larger NRPPs. We've got to have something that does provide visibility, grants, and effectiveness at the European level. So here I very much do agree with the concerns voiced by the rapporteur when it comes to the reduction of the guaranteed amounts. And it would be interesting to discuss this here in Parliament, and see what the key cons say about that. We also do see that there has to be a minimum amount, which is very clearly reserved for fisheries and for agriculture.
We need that type of production in the budget. Without that, we're going to be on the slippery slope of undermining fisheries policy, which will, at the end of the day, not respect its specificities and part of European policy. If we're going to have common policy, well, the first and foremost policy that should be fisheries policy. So I do support the rapporteur's focus here when it comes to making sure that there is legal coherence. It has to be something based on the treaties and the specific provisions of the treaties.
That has to be in the legal tool being appropriate. Now one thing that's essential to my mind are the outermost regions. There has to be explicit recognition of their specific structural situations, and we've got 3 49 in the TFE, which is very relevant to that. We do see in the outermost regions the ongoing crises and situations which don't just justify specific assistance but actually envelopes which are earmarked for them within the larger envelope. These are European territories at the end of the day, be the outermost, and they're important for food security.
They're important for biodiversity. And if we're really going to use the word cohesion and mean it, well, we've got to have the tools that can actually do the trick. A final point: flexibility and simplification. Well, you can't do that at the expense of the fleet and having a fragmented CFP at the end of the day. We've got to make certain that we do have the financial resources.
You can't have them just then sifted into different national envelopes, and the priorities get left out of the mix. Member states can't be left to decide that. Of course, we'll see that at the end of the day you don't really have a common legal framework for the policies of fisheries. No, you've got to have fisheries still be a common policy, as in the past. You've got to have specific funds earmarked, and within the MFF, you've got to make certain that this is something that is respected.
I do think that Andre has got a good text here before us. And as Paco said, we're going to put in our contributions to even improve this text. Mister Museum?
Pierre Karleskind
I would like to express thanks to the rapporteur. Thank you for your efforts. It's extremely important that we all share our analyses because the presentation of NRPPs entails the risk of a renationalization of this exclusive European competence, and I think we need to work to avoid that. A lot has already been said that I agree with. I won't repeat everything.
Francisco José Millán Mon
Just one last point I want to make. We have to avoid any contradictions between this opinion and the report on structural support. I was a rapporteur, the new rapporteur sitting next to me now. So I think we need to work together with Mr. Herbs and you to ensure that we avoid any contradictions between the various legislative proposals.
We don't want fishers to suffer from differences in legal procedures. We don't want market fragmentation. We don't want an uneven playing field. So we should do everything to prevent that. We need to clearly establish one single clear regulatory framework for the official sector.
Pierre Karleskind
And this is not something we can afford to wait for. We need to get to work straight away on this. And you can count on my support and the support of my group, I think. Thank you.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
Vice Chair, Cabralna Acemento. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd also like to salute the work performed here by the rapporteur d'E. The Fisheries Committee was unanimous in rejecting the Commission's proposal here, putting this into a common fund.
And then you'd have competition between cohesion and agriculture, with fisheries. That would undermine such an essential sector as this. And this sector, again, we supply 70% of the fish that's eaten in the EU, it deserves special attention. It needs its own fund. It needs its own legislative tools.
So we do think that what's been put forward here by the Reperture is very good, and it's certainly supported by the EPP. We do want to take out of these amendments the part on the RPPs. We want to make sure that there is a specific arrangement kept aside for fisheries at the European level. We also think that it would be good to have the legal basis in this document. We've got Article 349 of the TFEU.
That is something specific to the outermost regions. I'd also like to note that I agree with what colleagues have said about the need for us to take a look at the actual numbers in this report, as to what was actually voted in the past in our committee and also will be voted today in the Econ Budget. Well, we should speak with one voice here. We should show that the Parliament is unanimous here in defending the fishery sector. And I'd also like to point out here and highlight questions addressing the outermost regions.
We've got a reference here to the need to have a specific fund for the outermost regions with a specific amount. I think we need to be more ambitious than we have been at present. And this as a fund is something that really does have to specifically look at the additional costs that are linked to the island settings, and we also should look at the problems of supply. The fleets shouldn't be specifically here for outermost reasons, but for other areas, yes. I'd like to also make a few other changes or suggest other changes to highlight the importance of having We had pose before for outermost regions, and we need to go back to having a specific pose.
We've agreed to that here in this committee. And a final point when it comes to the Oceans Pact, well, we need to also have the possibility, and there's something here we can look at here, that we need to have an observatory for Atlantic fisheries. And we need to really balance here what's on the one side, we've got the oversight of fisheries but also with support of fishers. And thank you very much. I'll be tabling some amendments.
Speaker 57
Again, I want to thank the rapporteur for the work that he's performed. Skidzen.
Speaker 47
We'll be speaking Danish. The commission's per proposal is completely unacceptable from the Danish point of view because you're cutting away two thirds of the budget for fisheries, and this is a complete attack on the entire sector. What we need is a new MFF to have direct support for fisheries and aquaculture so they can go through their transformation. Thank you very much to the rapporteur for the excellent work on this, and we have to at least have the components we had from the earlier budget. The world is very uncertain today, so we can't cut support for our fishers who ensure that we have food every day.
Food security is an absolutely central point for me. And if it was up to me, the articles for aqua talk, aquaculture, aquaculture and fisheries would be moved into a sectoral regulation. This way, we have an influence on our CFP. And the coming CFP is absolutely crucial that we ensure a reduction in red tape, to ensure this is carried out rapidly. And I hope we get support for this in the committee for the work connected to the MFF negotiations.
Speaker 59
Once again, thank you very much for the excellent work to the rapporteur.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Yes. Well, thank you very much, madam chair. Thank you very much, Robert Pozzur. You really voiced our concerns here, and you've really got it when it comes to our political sensibilities. Now, when it comes to the new architecture for the new FFF, well, things don't add up.
2,000,000,000 instead of 6,100,000,000? Well, that's why we're starting first and foremost with a call to reestablish the budget up to 7,000,000,000, which reflects the challenges before the European and outermost region fisheries challenges. Just speaking on the help of Breton, that's the fisheries agricultural participants who are attending our meeting. They see the importance of European funding. Beyond the amounts, we want to have this multi-annual financial framework to be sufficiently flexible to really address the true needs of the sector.
The rules need to be changed when it comes to MFAV. We need to see what's been done for fisheries overseas or in the outermost regions and follow that. But we also need to take a look at the areas where there is going to be overregulation. Sometimes we also see there's too much when it comes to horizontal rules. If you look at the performance regulation and its repertoire there, I'd like to make some suggestions here.
Now, in the opinion here, we largely take a look at the first part, which is the national and regional agreements for the CFP. But if you look at Section two, when it comes to competitiveness, I think you've also got to do what you can do to improve fisheries when it comes to research and development of new energy approaches for vessels and for fishing tackle. Thank you.
Thank you. And now I'll be speaking on my own behalf as a member. Perhaps I could begin by saying I particularly thank the secretariat for all the hard work they've been doing for the last few months to ensure that parliament's role and the role of the fisheries committee, together with Biogen and so on, should be able to state a clear opinion, and that we should have an important enough role to be able to negotiate the future MFF. We didn't manage to achieve everything we set out to achieve, but at least we are now present in all the decisions. And I also would like to thank the committee for having unanimously supported the €7,300,000,000 budget proposal, and also for the broad majority on the role of fisheries.
At the moment, this framework renationalizes policies in many sectors, but in particular in the fishery sector. Everybody is determining their own action program, which means that at the moment, cohesion for fisheries regions, food security, all of this is losing weight in the new framework. So that's why I'm grateful to our rapporteur for his hard work in putting on the table the proposal that all of us support, regardless of any amendments. And I'm very grateful to the shadows as well for their very professional work on this matter. I think issuing this opinion, even if it's only an opinion, will be a crucial part of the work on this file that AGRI, REGI, and BUDG are working on.
The fisheries committee should have, well, fisheries should have an important political and financial role in the future in this framework. So this is all as well important in the context of the global Europe proposal that Ms. Agora Goitia Martinez is going to be presenting. It's important that we play an important role when it comes to the conclusion of the sustainable fisheries partnership agreement. Have to ensure that the fisheries sector is given the support that it deserves in all of these areas, in all of its facets, bearing in mind the important roles that it plays in these different areas.
So I'm going to give the floor to the commission representative, Mr. Van Pooka, to give us his response to the points we've raised.
Neville VARUNSTAIKE
Sorry to disappoint. It will not be Mr. Van Pooker. It will still be me. Yes. Apologies also for our acting director who unfortunately had some medical issues and couldn't be here today.
In the interest of the time, and I would just like to maybe address three points that I heard in most of the interventions. And these are not coming as a surprise because as you all mentioned, we have discussed this before. So this has been said by the commission before. So maybe the first point to address is the question of the single fund having a separate self-standing fisheries fund. I think here, it's important to bear in mind that the future MFF proposal proposes a profound change to the financing framework, and it is done for a reason.
It is done for a reason to bring all the funds together because the current funding setup is too fragmented, as we also see through the crisis situations. It is too complicated for the beneficiaries, and it doesn't allow to exploit the synergies that we could now. So the new framework, as proposed, aims to address these things. So I think this is important to bear in mind when you reflect on having or not a self-standing fund. Now, on the earmarked amount, this has also been said.
It's just so the current MFFOF, of course, has the more than 6,000,000,000. You rightly noted that. However, the future MFFOF proposes a different approach in that it proposes just the minimum amount of the 2,000,000,000. So the 2,000,000,000 is just the beginning, and the member states should and will have to tap into the bigger part of the NRP of 400,000,000,000 to fund the measures that need to be adopted for the to ensure CFP and Ocean Pact implementation. So this is just the beginning, and I would say that it's important to read the NRP proposal in its entirety to really see that the CFP and the maritime policy is well safeguarded and well anchored in the NRP proposal.
If we look at Article two on the general objectives, Article three on specific objectives, all of these articles contain references to our policies. So the member states will have to propose measures to fund, and it is obvious that the 2,000,000,000 would not be enough. We also have Article 22, which sets out what each member state plan will have to address. The CFP is also there. And we have Article 35, which explains what measures, what are the core CFP measures that have to be funded from the ring-fenced amount.
So this is just the minimum that they have to do. You also have Annex five, which has section 1.8 that provides for a self-standing chapter on maritime and fisheries affairs. So this also grants another safeguard that the policy is well anchored and well reflected in the national plans of the member states. And now the last point I saw, I heard some of the honorable members mentioning is the Ocean Pact. Ocean Pact, in our view, is granting an additional opportunity to fund more than just fisheries or just maritime affairs.
The Ocean Pact, indeed, it is a communication. It is not a legally binding document. However, it sets out all the priorities and all the ocean-related policies in one document. And in our view, this grants a great opportunity for the member states to adopt a holistic approach and once again exploit the synergies among the different maritime sectors, because we do have quite a few synergies that we can exploit. So this is just to explain why the Ocean Pact is there.
And, of course, we look forward to reading the final report, and we look forward to engaging further with the European Parliament on exchanging on this proposal. Thank you.
André Franqueira Rodrigues
Well, thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank firstly all the contributions made by my colleagues and the shadow reporters, and just say that obviously the idea here was to try and take into consideration all the different suggestions that have been made by my colleagues. We want a document which is as all-encompassing and consensual as possible. But I think that it's very important here when it comes to what's going to be voted in the budget committee today, that's important. It's also important because once again we see in this Parliament that there is pretty close to a unanimous position here when it comes to our reaction to the Commission's initial proposal.
And again, we think it's very important to say again what's been said in the past. The European Commission, well, congratulations because in a difficult political world where there's so much division, you've actually found a way to unite the different groups here in the Parliament. So if we've got this difference of opinion between the different institutions, and if the Commission only is going to listen to the point of view which is here expressed so clearly by the Parliament, when it comes to the architecture, when it comes to the funding levels. And if you just register this, hopefully you're getting the political signal which is being sent clearly and loudly from the Parliament. If you don't get the message, then we're not doing our part.
Isabelle Le Callennec
The chair. Anyone else? If
No, then thank you to the rapporteur and shadow. The reporters will set a deadline for amendments for April 23. So that's your amendment deadline. And let's now move on to the draft opinion on establishing Global Europe. This is a commission proposal for regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing Global Europe. The Epêche coordinators attributed this opinion to the Renu Group on the 12/03/2025.
And Ms. Eugen Aguirregoitia Martinez was appointed rapporteur. So I will give her the floor to present her work on this opinion. You have the floor, madam. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Izaskun Bilbao Barandica
And first of all, of course, many thanks to the commission for the explanations they're always ready to give us. And I also would like to thank everybody who's been working on this subject, and I would like to stress the points that we focused on in this opinion. As in the preceding point that we discussed, the lack of sufficient funding in the NRPs, here too, we stress that it is important to have sufficient funding for all activities linked to fisheries and agriculture under the Global Europe Fund. But of course, this is to cover other external actions of the union related to fisheries, such as the sustainable fisheries partnership agreements and the global Europe. You cannot just look at the fisheries and agriculture sector in environmental terms.
Speaker 61
You also have to think of these sectors as being a way of increasing competitiveness in Europe and creation of jobs, because, of course, we want to ensure in our external action mutually beneficial with our partners, including in the fisheries sector. So we need to have win-win situations for both sides in our partnerships. And we want to support Europe actions in the field of the rules-based international order, particularly in the current geopolitical situation in which we find ourselves. We want to strengthen the position of the EU at a global level and also protect the competitiveness of our maritime sectors, in particular fisheries, to have fairer competition, as I say, creating fairer conditions through a rules-based order. As we've said, under the discussion in the MFF, we need to promote the importance of.
Izaskun Bilbao Barandica
Fisheries sector for the Union. It's also important in the context of ocean governance, and this is equally valid for the Global Europe Fund. The importance of promoting an international agenda at a high level of ambition cannot be overstated. We should promote an international rules-based order in oceans and fisheries. We should also defend zero tolerance to IUU fishing.
We should contribute to fair competition for our fisheries and agriculture sectors. And we must, of course, promote cooperation and create mutually beneficial conditions for the EU and its partner countries in our external activities. And finally, I have to stress the importance of the EU's cooperation with partner countries that doesn't take place in isolation, but has to be coordinated in a holistic way, so that we can get the best possible results for all parties concerned. Thank you. Thank you very much to the rapporteur.
Isabelle Le Callennec
So now we'll give the floor to the shadow rapporteurs. First of all, Paolo Donacimiento Cabral for the EPP.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
Yes. Well, thank you very much, madam chair. Well, firstly, I'd like to thank the reporters for the project they have presented. Indeed, it is something which very much affects efforts to combat IUU fishing and unfair competition in the area faced by European fishers. This is an environmental impact, but a financial one, and an economic one it is.
So I think diplomacy can help here, Europe vis-à-vis the rest of the world. I think it's very important that we do take a look at the external dimensions of the EU. And when it comes to fisheries, it's very important that we do make sure that European fishers are able to compete in an ever-more demanding international context. So we've got to be effective. We've got to be consistent in our efforts to defend the EU and the world, particularly when it comes to international cooperation for the sustainable development of biodiversity areas and also making sure that we define maritime ecosystems.
Now, as something I just said, we also want to make sure that we do have the possibility to ensure fair competition, and also while respecting our environmental and societal considerations in Europe. Now this tool is going to be a complement to what's done in terms of sustainable fishing agreements, which should contribute to making sure that there is a sustainable food source for the European Union. It also needs to look at the needs of our fishers in light of climate change to help with better fishing, and we that can help the resilient blue economy come to the fore through good international arrangements. When it comes to overseas areas, well, it's very important that we do see that they have a very important role at the borders of the EU, and their cooperation with our neighbors is very important, and the Global Gateway is one thing that comes to mind. So this is something that also should help for ocean policy in light of the Paris agreements, and also biodiversity agreements, and also the European Oceans Pact.
All of this involves the fact that we have the €15,000,000 set aside for this, which can be used to help fisheries here. So we need to also make certain that we do see what's going to be voted on this matter in other committees, including Budget, that will be important, therefore moving forward with global Europe.
André Franqueira Rodrigues
Yes. Thank you, madam chair. Well, I'm speaking here on behalf of Joseppe Lupo, my colleague who's not able to be here today because he has commitments outside the Parliament. But he wanted me to read his message here and congratulate, first of all, the rapporteur for the draft opinion. Thank you for the work you've done here.
Indeed, fisheries and agriculture are not just environmental policies, but they are essential when it comes to growth, job creation, and local development. There we need to perhaps stress those points more and mention that partnership agreements for sustainable fisheries are very important, and also the regional arrangements and organizations for the governance of fisheries and the need to change those policies. We think that you've got it right in terms of identifying what needs to be done. There needs to be better coordination between the sectorial support and the different tools which Global Europe is providing by having better equations of the European efforts and the area of fisheries. And when it comes to the content, well, Global Europe should very clearly be a tool for strategies to promote European standards at the worldwide level, to make certain that there is fair competition and we effectively combat illegal fishing.
We should go beyond just mentioning the difficulties of financing and the shortcomings, the loopholes. We need to actually come up with the new types of agreements where the societal and environmental concerns are mainstreamed. Jose Lupo, our shadow rapporteur, expresses our willingness to be involved in the fine-tuning of this proposal. Thank you again, Madam Chair.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Thank you very much. Ms. Le Caneliec. Thank you, Madam Chair. We regularly stress here that more than 70% of the products that we consume from the sea are imported.
As you know, the EU signs free trade agreements, fisheries agreements, and trade agreements with partner countries. I personally think that these agreements should be made subject to very strict rules for guaranteeing fair competition. I'm grateful for the proposals about Title III of the future MFS. A lot of financing goes to third countries from the EU, and this funding should be subject to their respecting our social and environmental rules when it comes to fisheries. The same rules, in other words, that we impose on our own European fishers.
Our colleague, Mr. Donaccimento Cabral, referred to the outermost regions, France, Spain, and Portugal, directly concerned by this. And we also shouldn't forget the overseas countries and territories. For France, this would include New Caledonia. And I will come forward with proposals to ensure that these territories can also benefit from EU support commensurate with their needs in the fishery sector.
Speaker 63
Thank you. Thank you very much. And now Ms. Miranda Path. Thank you, madam president.
Ana Miranda Paz
I've just come from a coordination meeting. I'd like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur. In this case, she's setting out positions that the Greens European Free Alliance share in coordination as well with the committee where Ms. Levin and I are active. I have some reservations with regard to this fund, as I've said on several occasions in the committee, because we think the instrument should contribute to the EU's collective objective to establish 0.7% of GDP for development, including in fisheries, in particular, through partnership agreements that have to be sustainable.
And we have concerns about these. First of all, the flexibility afforded by the commission could reduce the level of this fund. And then the second is funding for the regions with the greatest needs, in particular, Sub-Saharan Africa. Those funds are being reduced to the benefit of other countries closer to the EU. And we also are concerned that the budget proposed by the European Commission is too high.
We think there'll be a reduction before the adoption of the NFL. The main critical problem that we have here is that the strategic interest of the EU are prioritized, such as migration, security, competitiveness. And these take precedence over classical development priorities: poverty reduction, support to coastal communities and equality, and also environmental concerns. So European interests are given priority in the funding, rather than the developing countries that really need the money. So we think this should be an instrument that serves local communities, those who are heavily dependent on fisheries, which is the case of the majority of these populations.
And we think that every cent from the EU should be devoted to improving those people's lives. That also involves inclusion in EU priorities. So we want there to be a solid gender perspective that promotes equality and also good practices in terms of the working conditions. And the funds should be destined to sustainable fisheries, support coastal fishers and small-scale fishing, and there should be close monitoring of every single euro spent to ensure that the greater flexibility given here actually does not make things less transparent, and it will be harder to see what kind of practices are actually being supported by European money. It could be unsustainable ones.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Thank you. I'd like to thank the rapporteur for her work here, and also for the work of the shadows. This is a fundamental question for the EU. The external dimension of sustainable fisheries partnership agreements is crucial not just to guarantee access to resources and so forth, but also these agreements play a crucial role in the development of the partner countries. And it gives them stability, and this applies to Mauritania, Morocco, and many others.
So we need to ensure secure funding, of course, control. Sometimes agreements take a long time to be concluded. I think we need to be faster. There are some cases where companies and workers are left idle for 15 months. There are sort of tunos, senors who are at risk of going broke, well, pending the conclusion of fisheries agreements and obtaining the right fish.
Also in the EU, there has to be a guarantee of sustainability, of good working conditions and support for coastal communities. If The U. S. Has to achieve this, want our partner to do so as well. So we want to create stability with our fleets, cooperation with our partner countries.
And of course, we want to protect our food sovereignty. This is the fundamental basis. We need to support these agreements. So I completely agree with the rapporteur when it comes to the funding that would come from Global Europe for this. So a particular thanks to the rapporteur for including this point.
And I'll now give the floor to Rafael Gaumet, Head of Universiti G. Mari, who will give us the commission position on this file.
Speaker 64
Thank you very much, Mrs. Chair. The European Commission generally welcomes the proposed amendments. We certainly concur with the need to respect the rules based order at international level, including ocean governance. We also welcome that the opinion brings forward the competitiveness angle.
We are very sensitive to the emphasis put on coordination and synergies with support and the sustainable fisheries partnership agreements, which is an ambition that we share. Here, I just want to bring clarification that Sustainable Fisheries Partnership agreements have a different legal basis from which stem specific financial resources. So, I think the wording needs to be clear that it's not about a request to add additional resources to the sustainable fisheries partnership agreements under the Global Europe Instruments. Of course, Global Europe instrument can complement, can support widely, but not directly support the sustainable fisheries partnership agreements. I think this clarification is important.
We also welcome the refinements to geographical priorities in Annex 2 that are proposed, which highlight the role of fisheries and aquaculture in food systems and inclusive and sustainable growth. But we would also like to maintain some differentiation across regions. And overall, we believe it is important to be mindful to maintain a balanced degree of generality in the document, including in the annexes and also across EU policies, and to keep the wide scope of the EU's approach to international ocean governance, which was highlighted also by some of the honorable members. So it's not exclusively focusing on resource management and fisheries. And we are ready to share more detailed comments with the reporter and the secretariat.
Thank you very much.
Izaskun Bilbao Barandica
Thank you very much to the commission. And, of course, we now give the floor to the rapporteur to wind up. Thank you very much, madam chair. Well, I'm grateful to the Shadows for their hard work and all of their proposals and comments they've shared. They mentioned New Caledonia.
Ana Miranda voiced her concerns or fears about losing sight of the development objectives, which I think all of us have. And the chair mentioned the importance of global Europe in the field of external action. So I'm looking forward to working with the commission on the points that we don't fully agree on yet. And I would look forward, of course, to continuing to work hand in hand with the shadows, and hope to bring this to a good conclusion. Thank you very much to the rapporteur for her work.
Isabelle Le Callennec
The deadline for the amendments is April 22, midday. And we now move on to the next item. It's the presentation of delegated acts affecting the harbor porpoise, and so forth.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
So we'll pass to point 12 now by a presentation of the commission. The next is the next item on this morning's agenda. I now welcome the commission representatives, mister Medawas Kizi Liaauskas, deputy head of unit Digimare, and mister Marco Valetta, deputy head of unit also from Digimare, and invite them to present the two delegated acts currently under scrutiny on the protection of the harbor purposes in the Baltic Sea, as well as Bluefin tuna management in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. We are interested to hear about the planning of the GMAR regarding the upcoming delegated acts, mister Kizil Iauskas. And Mister Valetta, have the floor roughly for eight minutes.
Mindaugas KISILIUSKAS
Thank you, Mister President and honorable members. This delegated act about the harbor porpoise is necessary to protect the sensitive species whose population was quantified as few as 497 individuals. The species is very close to extinction. It is a continuation of measures adopted in the delegated act in 2022. And as laid down in the recital of a delegated act, the Baltic Sea member states committed to agree on more detailed measures to monitor fishing activity linked to the mitigation measures.
Speaker 66
This delegated act is the result of that commitment undertaken by the Baltic Sea member states. It introduces intrinsically linked monitoring measures so that the fishing restrictions and prohibition for static nets in several Natura 2000 sites of the Baltic Sea are respected. They complement and strengthen the mitigation measures currently in force and have been proposed by member states themselves. They apply at regional level and contribute to the objective of reducing incidental bycatch of Baltic proper harbor porpoises. In a nutshell, these specific measures contain this delegated act entail.
Mindaugas KISILIUSKAS
Firstly, tracking vessels below 12 meters when setting a higher VMS frequency transmission. The measures to track small vessels will cease to apply in 2028, once the full provisions of the controlling vessels below 12 meters enter into force via the new control regulation. In order to give time for the operators to adapt, the measures will start applying 12 months after the entry into force of a delegated act. Once again, I already mentioned, I would like to recall that the situation of the harbor porpoised population in the Baltic Sea is critical. In 2025, ISIS reiterated we need to improve monitoring of the population and fishing effort data.
In previous years, the STCF had also positively assessed having specific monitoring measures for Marina 2000 sites due to their usually small size and the risk that fishing could take place without being detected. Furthermore, all monitoring measures contained in this delegated act applied to other Natura 2000 sites of the Baltic Sea and the North Sea and have been introduced via delegated acts of article 11 that are currently in force. I would also mention that the same monitoring measures were introduced in other Natura 2000 sites of the Baltic Sea by delegated regulation 2024/2943. I would point out that just a few weeks ago, on March 10, European Parliament adopted a resolution on the fisheries management approaches for safeguarding sensitive species that calls on the commission and the member states to take full use of common fisheries policy tools, in particular technical measures to address fisheries interactions and enhance the protection of sensitive species. This is exactly what this delegated act is doing.
It proposes measures to enhance the protection of endangered species. Just to give you an example of how sensitive this species is, scientists have told us that catching even one individual a year of this population can contribute to the extinction of this population in the Baltic Sea. Now I would also like to use an opportunity to inform this committee about delegated acts which are upcoming and will be presented shortly in this committee. So the commission has just adopted a delegated regulation on conservation measures under article 11 of this CFP to protect the harbor porpoise in the Swedish Natura 2000 site. Sorry for my Swedish pronunciation.
So this delegated act proposes a combination of measures to protect benthic habitats, harbor porpoises, and marine birds in Natura 2000 sites in the North Sea. In the pipeline, there are two other delegated acts to protect sensitive species, a delegated regulation proposing conservation measures in seven Natura 2000 sites in the Swedish waters of the Baltic Sea, and a delegate act under the technical measures regulation repealing measures that currently apply in a Natura 2000 site since more stringent measures will be introduced under article 11 of the CFP. The measures entail fishing prohibitions to enhance the protection of sensitive species and habitats, harbor porpoise among them. These two delegated acts will be adopted in the coming weeks, and the European Parliament will be invited to attend the corresponding expert group as usual. The last upcoming delegated act that I would mention is actually linked to the GFCM, and it is on the landing obligation.
It will be a direct transposition of the decisions taken at the GFCM level, and its purpose is to ensure consistency between the GFCM recommendation on one side and the EU LO on the other side. And it will ensure that about landing obligation for catches of picked dogfish and turbot smaller than minimum conservation reference size established in various recommendations and will be exemption from the landing obligation. And just to mention that it falls under article 15, paragraph two of the basic regulation, which empowers the commission to adopt delegated acts for the purpose of implementing into EU law international obligations. So I stop here for my presentation.
Marco Valetta
Mister Chair, honorable members, good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to present the delegated act on the Bluefin tuna management in the context of iCAD. The delegated act under discussion is needed to align the new bluefin tuna management framework to the latest ICCAT rules defined by recommendation 2504. In general, new EICAT rules enter into force in June, following the annual meeting. But exceptionally in this case, EICAT decided that the new bluefin tuna recommendation would apply as of January 1, 2026.
ICAP has informed the contracting parties in late December 2025 through a circular that the Bluefin Tuna recommendation would apply as of first January 2026, should no objections be lodged by ICAP contracting parties. And in January, we have the confirmation that no objection had been lodged. So the commission immediately started the procedure for a draft regulation. The internal adoption process was launched on 01/01/2026, and the delegated act was adopted by the commission on 03/04/2026 and transmitted on the same day to the college slate. Why is this act so important?
The act introduced a series of key amendments for the benefit of our fleet and our operators. In details, it anticipates by one week the fishing season. So season will now start on 19 May 2026, and the alignment is key to ensure 11 playing field for our fleet. It also increases from 5% to 20%, the possibility to carry over unusual annual quarters, and this allows member states for a greater operational flexibility. In addition, the dedicated act transforms the delegation for porciners fishing in the Cantabrian Sea from temporary to permanent.
And this allowed the Cantabrian farming of both in tuna to move from a pilot phase into a more permanent one. The act also allows the development of a pilot project in the Canary Islands to assess the condition for fishing and farmers in farming in the waters of the Canary Islands. The rest of the amendments are mostly technical. They include faster updates for vessel type change, enhanced inspection controls, updated video standards to ensure a modern and reliable monitoring of fishing activities, and the better definition of functions and holds of observers. With this, I've given a brief overview of the context of the act, and we are obviously happy to take any questions on this.
Thanks.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
Thank you so much to the commission. Now I'll leave the floor to our members who wish to comment or ask questions. The first is Isabelle Le Calunek.
Isabelle Le Callennec
Well, thank you, Chair. Thank you for those presentations. I think if we manage the resources well, indeed we can increase the fishing quotas and fishers, like that. I think that's particularly true for the Mediterranean. I would like to put a question to you, since you're here.
Have you been contacted as to a trade agreement with Indonesia there for the given price? Well, this is something that really does worry the European tuna fishers. Didn't know anything about that. There's a call to do away with customs duties on the fleets there. And particularly, this would affect the Reunion Island fishers.
Apparently, this is sailing under the radar a bit, but the sector is concerned, those that do fish for tuna in the Indian Ocean. I wonder if you know anything about that.
Isabella Lövin
Thank you, chair. Thank you to the commission for the presentation. We fully support the proposal when it comes well, both of them. And especially on the Baltic, we're on the reportoire. I think this is even another example of how extremely vulnerable the Baltic is.
I'm really happy that today, we got a majority in this committee on a new recovery plan for the Baltic, or rather to have the commission come up with it. But the fact that we have less than 500 harbor porpoises in the Baltic, and it's not going in the right direction. It's going in the wrong direction even after like 30 years of work to try to recover this very vulnerable and also very emblematic, iconic, charismatic animal. I mean, this is the dolphin of Sweden or of Scandinavia. They're very cute, but they're very small, and they're also very vulnerable both to pollution, such as organic pollution that hampers their reproductive capacity, such as PCB and dioxin.
And it's accumulating in their bodies because they eat a lot of fish, and they get more and more of that. And then they have difficulties in reproducing, but also in shipping, underwater noise and fisheries. And I saw here in the delegated act also mentioning, which I think is a bit tragic because we want to protect small scale fisheries, but it's actually gill nets and trammel nets, static nets that are the biggest danger to them. So maybe if the commission can say something about that, this delegated act addresses that at all. But generally, we support this process.
Thank you.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
Thank you. Now I'll speak on behalf of myself as a member. Now I'd like to thank the presentation from the commission, but at the same time, I have to remind that the delegated acts are not merely administrative instruments. They are quite important and they affect the life of our fishermen and our coastal communities, and also the stability of the sector and the credibility of the European Union. In this sense, I think it's quite important that we have the possibility to not have control measures beyond what we have already decided under the control regulations through delegated acts.
So it's quite important for us to take all of this into account and to avoid that this could happen in the future in other files because a delegated act is a specific issue that is important that not goes beyond and further what we have on our control regulation. I would like also to make some comments on the commission's delegated act on measures to reduce incidental catches of the resident population of the Baltic, proper harbor proposed in the Baltic Sea. The proposed delegated act raises a number of important concerns. First, it foresees that small scale fishing vessels shall be equipped with a vessel monitoring system, VMS. But, however, under the revised control regulation, these vessels benefit from a transitional period until 2030 for the installation of these systems.
This raises a fundamental question. How can a delegated act introduce obligations that appear to contradict or at least anticipate provisions laid down in a basic legislative act adopted by the colleges like this, under the ordinary legislative procedure? Second, the use of the empowerment under the technical measures regulation to introduce what are in a sense control requirements is highly questionable. It gives the impression that control measures are being introduced through the back door, bypassing the legislative framework specifically designed for that purpose. What is the underlying logic of using a framework designed for conservation and technical rules to introduce control obligations?
We were informed during the negotiations of the revised control regulation that the council advocated for regionalized controlled empowerment, which was ultimately not retained in the final text. Yet in this delegated text, the commission justifies these measures precisely on the basis of their regional nature, and this raises concerns about consistency with the co-legislators' intent. And finally, I'll switch to Portuguese.
Well, it was very important for the fishers in Madeira and The Azores to see an increase in the possibilities for fishing for Surabhi. This is a species which is very much appreciated in these islands, and also increases the revenues for fishers there. And we think you did an excellent job there when it came to the conservation of the existing stocks. And I recall that the quota for this fish uses the most eco-friendly fishing techniques and ensures sustainability. So the work that was done by the fishers, by Madeira and The Azores, meant that we were able to increase the Torah B by 25% for the coming three years.
That's something that should be recalled.
Mister Kizil, you ask us and mister Valetta to respond or to react to what you just heard from the members. We will have roughly 5 minutes. Thank you. The floor is yours.
Mindaugas KISILIUSKAS
Thank you very much for the questions and for the remarks. So we indeed share the assessment of how vulnerable harbor porpoise is, and we agree that all measures need to be undertaken to support the population and to mitigate bycatches as much as possible. So we know that static nets, as pointed out, is indeed an issue. And this is, actually, the measures have already been introduced for the static net. What we are talking about here is actually that there is no system to monitor, that there is actually no fishing activity in prohibited areas to ensure bycatchers of these sensitive species.
And I think that has been identified by the member states, and that's why member states are committed to come up with these measures to monitor fishing activity. And this is what they have put in, you know, as a joint recommendation and to be implemented in this delegated act. Because without these monitoring measures, actually, we are protecting the species. We have measures, but if we don't know if vessels actually comply with them, if they're setting nets in those prohibited areas during the seasons where it's not possible to set them, then indeed, it jeopardizes the overall structure of the measures. So I think what we actually put forward here is that member states and also the commission as a delegated act, in the delegated act, is intrinsically linked monitoring measures that actually support this prohibition of the to fish in certain areas during certain periods, and also say we need to receive data from vessels to know where they're actually going, what they are doing, and that these prohibitions are actually being complied with.
So what we are dealing with here is not something a general anticipation of something that was adopted by the legislators in the control regulation. What we are talking here is very specific measures, monitoring measures to monitor. So, very specific activities in sensitive areas. Most of them are Natura 2000 sites, and it's also to protect sensitive species. So I think this is in the natural what, you know, to respond to the nature of these measures.
And, also, is it enough what we are doing? The commission's point of view is that we're actually encouraging member states to continue work, and we're working very closely with the regional member states group to come up with new measures, acoustic deterring devices, and, you know, this is and also working with scientists that they produce better assessment and give us better advice what is actually needed. I think we share the assessment that losing the sensitive species is really not an option, and we need to do everything that is possible to protect it.
Marco Valetta
Thank you, chair. A few comments from my side. First of all, we'd like to thank the honorable members for the support, which has been expressed to the delegated acts on Bluefin Tuna. Concerning the EU Bluefin Tuna share, 2025 has been a particularly important year in the sense that the TAC has now been increased by 17%, and this is obviously very important. It reflects the improvement in the situation of the stock, an improvement which has been led by the efforts of the European Union.
So it is important now the EU and our officials are able to benefit from the results of this success and this effort. So we'll certainly defend based strongly our growth in tuna quota also in the future. Concerning Indonesia, I would like just to stress that in our free trade agreement negotiation, we are very cautious when it comes to sensitive products, and tuna figures are certainly sensitive products. So this is obviously especially true when it comes to our negotiation with our Asian trading partners. And in this, we obviously take into account systematically the concerns raised by our stakeholders in the course of the negotiations.
Thank you.
Paulo do Nascimento Cabral
Thank you so much for this explanation. I don't know if you have any other questions. If not the case, I would like to thank the commission and close this point. And with that, we close our work from the morning, and I will remind you all that we resume our work this afternoon, after 02:00. Have a nice lunch, and see you later.
Thank you.
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