At the ‘Tripartite Meeting on Issues Relating to Migrant Fishers’ organised by the International Labour Organization (ILO) this week in Geneva, representatives from Governments, Workers and Employers adopted a set of conclusions, which includes a joint resolution, to address the challenges faced by fishers working on foreign vessels. Europêche’s representatives defended and promoted full respect for the social and labour rights of all fishing vessel’s crews and demanded that the same level of compliance must be required for all countries.

The European fishing industry represented by Europêche voiced concerns in the European Parliament (EP) over the almost total lack of implementation of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) 2014-2020. The EUR 6.4 billion fund has not been operational for more than three years after its adoption (15 May 2014) and only now it is starting to be used by the Member States. In fact, although the EMFF is essential to achieve the ambitious objectives set out in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), up until September 2017, only 1.4% of the fund has been used. The sector also called for a post-2020 specific, flexible and simplified fisheries fund, with a larger budgetary allocation and much less bureaucracy, allowing its full use from the very beginning.

The European Commission (EC) released last week its annual proposal for fishing opportunities in the Baltic Sea 2018. With this proposal, the EC intends to ban for the first time all marine eel commercial and recreational fisheries in the EU waters of the Baltic Sea for 2018. This radical measure comes as a surprise to fisheries associations which were not previously consulted. Such a prohibition would hit particularly small-scale fishers that are critically dependent on this species.