Last week’s long awaited European Commission proposal to overhaul the bloc’s policy on fisheries is being criticised by environmentalists and some parliamentarians for failing to do enough to address sustainability issues. The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform proposal – over a year in the making – contains provisions to reduce harvests of the most over-exploited stocks, stop discarding bycatch, and fix quotas for fish stocks on multi-year basis.
Brussels has acknowledged for years that the current system is unsustainable and had requested input from an array of stakeholders to help shape the new rules.
“The Commission underlines that our current policy does not work anymore,” said Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanki at a 20 July press conference. “We cannot afford business as usual.”
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