20
Oct
2022
Watch
Commission implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1614 of 15 September 2022 determining the existing deep-sea fishing areas and establishing a list of areas where vulnerable marine ecosystems are known to occur or are likely to occur (debate)
Madam President, these days Regino and his partners, Burela's shipowners of the skewer fleet affected by the Commission's decision, wrote to me, which do not explain how no arguments were presented before to be excluded from this decision. The impact of this measure on more than a thousand ships – four thousand crew – and the impact on the auction halls of my country, Galicia, with the potential loss of sales: It's a mess. With this veto on Galician fishing, hundreds of crew members will lose their jobs and part of their salaries, not only in bottom fishing gear, such as the longline fleet of the Great Sun or the trawl fleet of the northwest Cantabrian Sea, but also in small-scale fishing gear, with 2 100 affected in this fleet segment. They are seafaring people and regions affected by a disproportionate and unfair decision. This veto deserves an urgent suspension: the urgency of bringing an action in Luxembourg. Commissioner, pass it on to the Commissioner, who we have not yet seen, and it is a shame that we have not seen him yet. And there are two problems. The first: The European Commission does not care about fishing. The second: the environmental and economic problem. From the political organization in which I am a member – the BNG – we will always be in favour of preserving environmental resources and biodiversity. But that too has been violated here. The environment, available resources and fishing capacities have been violated, as the social impact has not been taken into account, updated data have not been available, the distinction between towed, bottom, mesh and longline gears has not been made. The Galician fleet has suffered many scraps. There is going to be overfishing and that is going to cause an environmental imbalance. And from here we will always vote against the veto, as we did in 2016.