After two years’ hard work, two NGOs have been able to obtain figures that show that almost half of all EU subsidies to fisheries have gone to one nation – Spain – and that tens of millions of Euros by en large have been spent subsidising vessels and practices worsening illegal fishing, increasing EU fleet overcapacity, and compounding overfishing in European waters.
The Pew Environment Group and EU Transparency has launched a website – fishsubsidy.org – analysing the hard-fought data obtained from the European Commission and member governments.
As for Spain, the figures showed that while Spain received 48 percent of all the fisheries subsidies between 1994 and 2006, other huge fisheries nations like France, Great Britain and Denmark received shares in the single figures.
In some cases subsidies went towards fisheries of some of the most threatened species – between 1994 and 2006 the Bluefin Tuna Purse Seiner Fleet in the Mediterranean received more than €17 million of European fisheries subsidies for modernisation and construction.
The figures also showed that some of the biggest subsidies went to ships and firms notorious for their questionable operations. A huge Spanish trawler named by Greenpeace as the most flagrant offender against vulnerable stocks of Mediterranean blue fin tuna enjoyed EU subsidies of more than €4m, and more from the Spanish government. Three vessels blacklisted by Greenpeace were given handouts believed to run into millions.
EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg has already stated that overcapacity is one of the biggest problems in the Union, and the Pew/EU Transparency report shows that it has in fact been fuelled by the Union itself.
“Rather than encouraging sustainable fishing, subsidies have contributed to ever greater capacity of fishing fleets and in turn to the depletion of valuable fish stocks. This new website provides greater transparency, allowing all stakeholders to have informed discussions about the appropriate uses for subsidies to support the European fisheries sector”, said Markus Knigge, Research Director of the Pew Environment Group’s European Marine Programme.