The French Elephant in the Room (by Michael Earle)
There is an issue here at ICCAT that is rarely
mentioned on the floor of the formal discussions and yet dominates the
economics – and therefore the politics – of the bluefin tuna discussions. It
offers interesting insights into the rivalries and power struggles among the
European institutions.
It is known in the jargon as the French
payback and has caused headaches for the EU for weeks.
In 2005 and 2006, the EU exceeded its quota
for bluefin. Under both ICCAT procedures and EU law, the EU should have had its
quota for bluefin in the following year reduced by the amount of over-fishing.
But the EU argued so eloquently about the harm that this would cause to the
industry that ICCAT forgave the over-fishing and the EU did not have its quota
reduced.
The EU was so grateful for this understanding
on the part of ICCAT that in 2007, it again over-fished, this time by a massive
5,021 tonnes – the French fleets fished over twice their national quota. There
is a limit to how often the EU can twist arms, though, so in 2008 ICCAT
insisted on a partial payback spread over four years (most of this comes from
the French allocation). Thus the EU has had its quotas for 2009 and 2010
reduced by 500 tonnes each year. The payback plan calls for much larger quota
reductions for each of 2011 and 2012 – 1,510 tonnes. Note that once again the
EU negotiated well, so the plan only requires a repayment of 4,020 tonnes
rather than the full 5,021 tonnes. The 1,000 tonnes not to be paid back is
worth some EUR 20 million.
A payback of 1510 tonnes would hurt a great
deal more than a payback of 500, so France has been making very loud noises
about requesting ICCAT to spread the payback over a longer period.
This is where the EU institutions come into
play. Before the ICCAT meeting, the European Commission, who represents the EU
here, was given a mandate by the Council on what it should strive for in the
negotiations. The battle between the Commission and Council was widely reported
in the press and it is no secret that the Commission wanted a mandate for a
very strong, precautionary approach with a reduction in the quota for bluefin.
Council resisted, led largely to France, so that the final mandate was less conservation-oriented
than the Greens had been hoping for.
As the negotiations here at ICCAT got underway
(almost entirely behind the scenes and in the corridors, by the way, people
here have difficulties even pronouncing the word “transparency”
without stuttering) it became clear that France wanted to raise the issue of
its payback. This could be done in one of two ways – either by persuading the
EU to ask for a delay in the payback or by asking another country here to do it
(in return for some other favour, naturally). Getting the EU to raise the issue
would be politically very sensitive, since it would require the entire EU to
agree to embarassing itself to ask for more lenient treatment for one Member
State. Given normal EU politics, this would mean France doing something for the
others, so it depends on how important it is for France.
We shall see how that plays out but so far, nothing has been
said in the meeting.
In a similar vein, I had suggested a few days
ago that most countries were so concerned about minimising any reduction to the
TAC that they were not opening up the very thorny question of reallocating the
current distribution of access to the bluefin fishery. That was rather
optimistic, for the question has been raised, though the countries that
consider themselves to be the most important ones quickly and strongly
resisted. Again, that is still open.
Author of the note: Michael Earle, Green adviser on fisheries issues, michael.earle@europarl.europa.eu