La setmana la Comissió Europea ha de decidir si dóna suport a la iniciativa de Mònaco d’incloure la Tonyina Vermella en l’Annex I de la Convenció sobre Comerç Internacional d’Espècies en Perill (CITES), cosa que comportaria la prohibició de comerciar internacionalment amb Tonyina Vermella. França (Sarkozy personalment), Regne Unit, Polònia, Holanda i Alemanya hi dónen suport. Dins la Comissió ens consta que la majoria de Direccions Generals també. La única excepció és la DG MARE (pesca i afers marítims). Precisament aquest dimarts he tingut de parlar-ne amb el Comissari Borg durant la seva compareixença a la Comissió PECH. I Durao Barroso? No ho sabem. Dimecres vinent, precisament després de la reunió que mantindran el col.legi de Comissaris té previst reunir-se amb nosaltres, Verds/ALE, per plantejar-nos la seva candidatura a presidir novament la Comissió. El tema de la Tonyina ha esdevint un tema polític de primer nivell. Són molts diners els que implica el seu comerç, i la pressió d’alguns sectors afectats és, lògicament, molt forta. És per això que avui li hem enviat una carta a Durao Barroso instant-lo a que, en la reunió de dimecres, se sumi a la llista dels qui dónen suport a la proposta monegasca. La carta la signem na Isabella Lövin, actualment coordinadora de Verds/ALE per a temes de Pesca, i jo mateix en qualitat de membre de la Comissió PECH, delegat de la UE a la reunió de ICCAT i actualment ponent de l’informe del Parlament sobre Documentació de les captures de Tonyina. Aquest serà, sens dubte, un dels temes que marcarà el debat la propera setmana. Adjunto a continuació el text de la carta:
3 September 2009
Dear President Barroso
We are writing to you today to express our
conviction that the Commission, which you currently preside, should support the
proposal made by the Principality of Monaco to list bluefin tuna on Appendix 1
of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Several
Member States have already expressed their support.
Given the status of the bluefin tuna population and
the direct responsibility of the EU on this issue, the Commission’s credibility
as a responsible member of the international community is at stake.
There is no doubt that the Atlantic bluefin tuna is
a severely depleted species throughout its range. The most recent scientific
assessment of bluefin tuna concluded that the eastern stock, fished primarily by
the EU, is one third the level that would produce the maximum sustainable yield
and fishing mortality is three times too high.
Nobody disputes the fact that the stock is in dire
need of strict conservation measures. The only question is how that can be best
achieved. (segueix…)
The International Commission for the Conservation
of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) is the fishery management body which has responsibility
for managing tuna fisheries, including bluefin tuna. It has been the position
of the Greens for several years that ICCAT was not fulfilling its obligations
with respect to bluefin tuna, a point we have made clear in several letters to
the Commission. In 2008, an independent panel of fisheries experts conducted a
review of the performance of ICCAT and they agreed with us. The panel concluded
that:
ICCAT
CPCs’ performance in managing fisheries on bluefin tuna particularly in
the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea is widely regarded as an
international disgrace[1]
The Panel went on to note that the only way to stop
“a travesty in fisheries management” was for:
all fishing for
East Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna be immediately suspended until the
CPCs involved in those fisheries, their nationals and companies operating in
their waters, agree to fully abide by the rules and recommendations of ICCAT
and international fisheries law
Two months later, ICCAT adopted a quota for bluefin
tuna that was far higher than the scientific advice.
Clearly, ICCAT has failed to assume its responsibilities.
The Greens contend that the European Union bears a
large share of the responsibility for the disgraceful situation in which ICCAT
and the bluefin tuna fishery find themselves. For many years, the EU has proposed,
and worked hard to achieve, catch limits that were significantly above the
scientific advice.
In Morocco last year, the scientific advice was for
catches in 2009 of 8,000 to 15,000 tonnes. The EU refused to support a proposal
to set the quota at 15,000 tonnes, which was sponsored or supported by 11
countries from North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Instead,
the European Commission lobbied intensively to defeat this proposal and in
favour of its own proposal – for 25,500 tonnes.
It is true that certain additional control measures
were adopted for the fishery, but a few well-intentioned bits of paper will
have very little effect in curtailing the massive amount of illegal fishing and
fraud that inevitably accompanies a fishery that is worth hundreds of millions
of euros. We include EU and non-EU fishers here: the draft report from the
European Fisheries Control Agency in 2008 noted that, with respect to EU
players, “It has not been a priority
of most operators in the fishery to comply with the ICCAT legal requirements.”
In addition to its irresponsible behaviour within
ICCAT, the EU has contributed to the problem by allowing the development of a
large surplus capacity of the fleet, much of it subsidized by EU structural
funds.
Both ICCAT and the EU have had a great many chances
to come to grips with an extremely lucrative fishery that has come to resemble
a feeding frenzy rather than a well-managed and sustainable fishery. They have
not done so.
President Barroso, in your Political Guidelines for
the Next Commission, published today,
you state that you want the Commission to put European fisheries policy
on a “sustainable footing”. We, the Greens, would argue that as far
as bluefin tuna is concerned, the current situation is so bad that this can
only be achieved by temporarily closing the fishery, as we have stated in the
past. Anything less than a moratorium is no longer sufficient. Since ICCAT is
blatantly incapable of making such a decision, the only alternative is to
impose a ban on international trade in bluefin tuna, by placing the species on
Appendix 1 of CITES until the species has recovered and ICCAT has adopted the
management measures that are necessary to allow the species to be fished
sustainably thereafter. This would be a good example of how the two Conventions
could operate in a complementary manner.
The Green Paper published in April by Commissioner
Borg freely admits the abject failure of the Common Fisheries Policy to achieve
sustainable fisheries. Indeed, the CFP is widely viewed, both inside and outside
the EU, as how not to manage commercial fisheries and the EU’s credibility
suffers as a consequence.
With bluefin, as with other fisheries, the EU is at
a crossroads. The question is whether the Community will summon the political
will to make the difficult decisions that are so clearly needed to put the
bluefin tuna fishery on a sustainable basis, and thereby achieve some
credibility as a body that actively supports responsible fishing. Or will the
EU continue to lead the pack of countries that insist, against all evidence,
that ICCAT is a credible organization; that the fishery is too valuable, at
least to a few wealthy ship-owners and traders, and that international trade
must not be interfered with?
As Commission President, you have a direct role to
play in making that choice and we look forward to discussing this with you next
week in our meeting.
signed:
Isabella Lövin, Greens/EFA Coordinator of the Fisheries
Committee
Raül Romeva y Rueda, Member
of EU Delegation to ICCAT, 2008
cc: Commissioner
Borg
Commissioner
Dimas
[1] Report of the Independent Review of the
International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, September
2008; page 11
Foto: Mercat de peix de Tsukiji. Font: Sanctu
