By the Select Committee appointed to consider European Union documents and other matters relating to the European Union.

ORDERED TO REPORT

FISH STOCKS ARE CRITICALLY LOW

1. The stocks of many fish in European Community waters have fallen to critically low levels, which for some species, especially cod, threaten immediate collapse. The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), in place for the past 17 years, has totally failed to achieve its fundamental objective of ensuring that fishing capacity and effort is consistent with self-sustaining fish populations and food chains. Instead there is chronic fishing fleet over-capacity and, despite quota controls and a range of technical and administrative measures designed to restrict fishing effort, fishing continues at an unsustainable rate. This has happened despite repeated warnings from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and despite reports from Committees of both Houses of Parliament and others.

POLITICAL WILL TO ACT IS LACKING AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL

2. These warnings have been largely ignored for the last decade primarily because of a lack of political will in the Member States of the European Union. This lack of will is understandable because of the very serious implications that draconian cuts in fishing effort have for fishermen and for those employed in related trades. Yet failure to take such action can only spell the eventual disappearance of the whole fishing industry.

THE FISHING INDUSTRY MUST BE HELPED TO ADJUST

3. Recently there has been a welcome acceptance by fishermen themselves that the scientific advice given over the past few years was correct and that action is overdue. EU Member States must therefore face up to the need to provide funds, on a much larger scale, to support those currently engaged in the industry during the period when the necessary cuts in fishing effort cause unemployment amongst fishermen and others in the related trades. Without this the whole future of the CFP is in jeopardy.

FISHING COMMUNITIES DESERVE ATTENTION FROM MORE SENIOR POLITICIANS

4. The fishing industry in all EU Member States is a very small component of the national economy. But it has an importance for the general public of maritime nations that is out of proportion to its overall economic importance and that relates instead to its importance in coastal communities. This issue has never been properly addressed, either in the United Kingdom or in other Member States, because fisheries have never been given enough political support. In the UK the Fisheries Minister has traditionally held a junior post and the same pattern now applies in the devolved administrations. Since our Report on the mid-term review of the CFP in 1992, the Minister of Agriculture has rarely attended the Fisheries Council in Brussels. If adequate resources are to be allocated from the EU the issue will need to be tackled at a much more senior (ie Cabinet) level.

A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH IS NEEDED

5. The CFP makes no reference to the effects of fishing on the marine environment. Once again this failure has been drawn to the attention of the EU in the numerous reports from both Houses of Parliament (see Box 1). There has been poor liaison between the Fisheries and Environment Directorates-General of the European Commission. The Fisheries Director-General has conceded that there is "absolutely no inter-linkage between the instruments for conservation...and the decisions we take regarding the [fishing] fleet."

6. The overarching conclusion which the Committee draws from the inquiry is that disappointingly little progress has been made on the key recommendations of the earlier reports, and indeed in many respects the position is getting worse. The disappointment is all the greater, given the generally encouraging tone of the new administration over three years ago (see Appendix 4).