1 October 2014
The NFFO has said that an obscure Brussels Committee which has expressed support for a blanket EU drift net ban “should be put to sleep.”
At its 501th plenary session, the EU
Social and Economic Committee approved a report
which slavishly follows the Commission’s proposal for a total ban, citing
environmental damage as the justification; and saying that the European Fisheries Fund should be used
to address any problems caused by fishermen losing their jobs.
NFFO Chief Executive, Barrie Deas, said “We don’t have to
worry too much about what the Social and
Economic Committee says. It is an irrelevance; an out of date aberration ignored
by the Commission and practically everybody else. It is an obscure body, mainly
comprised of employers and workers representatives; it costs a fortune; is out
touch and was only created to fill a perceived democratic void in the period before
the European Parliament obtained any teeth. It should have been put to sleep a
long time ago.”
The Committee’s role is to express an Opinion, which the
Commission and co-legislators can ignore with impunity and regularly do. Because
the Committee has no knowledge of, connection
with or interest in the fishing industry it will have appointed an arbitrary
“expert” who will have shaped this report. I know how the Committee works, as
years ago, I was asked to be the “expert” on the Technical Conservation
Regulation. It is a lazy, arcane and essentially pointless process.”
“It is extremely important that the many small-scale and
sustainable drift net fisheries around the coast are allowed to continue unmolested
and I believe that we are making progress – with the Commission, with the European
Parliament, with the member states and with the advisory councils – in bringing
to the fore their importance and essentially benign character. We must see this
through to a satisfactory outcome. The views of this irrelevant committee won’t
affect the outcome one way or another.”