Posted on January, 01 2020

The EU committed for its fleets to make seafood catches within thresholds that allow species to replenish their populations, known as Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2020. However, recent studies (see below) demonstrate that, overall, fish caught within the European marine area are not being harvested sustainably and that objectives for healthy, productive and resilient European seas are not being met.

Further, the European Council and EU Fisheries Ministers have put themselves in an especially compromising position by making decisions in direct breach of EU law: to prolong overfishing of deep-sea stocks, Baltic Sea stocks and North-east Atlantic stocks beyond 2020, taken in November 2018, October 2019 and December 2019 respectively [1]. 

WWF calls on the European Parliament to strongly condemn the EU’s failure to end overfishing by 2020, and urges the Council and Commission to fully implement the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and fall in line with EU environmental legislation which supports healthy seas, including the Habitats Directive, the Birds Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.

Dr Anne-Cécile Dragon, Marine & Fisheries Policy Officer at the WWF European Policy Office, said: “In 2020, EU environment and fisheries ministers face their greatest test ever: will they finally secure an ocean where people and nature thrive, as committed to in the Common Fisheries Policy? It is fundamental for EU credibility, especially in the context of the European Green Deal and other looming environmental deadlines, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, that the EU and its Member States finally deliver on their promises.”

2020 is the year the EU must achieve ‘Good Environmental Status’ in its seas, the primary objective of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. A WWF assessment from December 2018 [2] found that nearly three quarters (74%) of the assessed fish and shellfish populations in Europe’s seas were not in ‘Good Environmental Status’, while only one Member State, Ireland, had made significant improvements to the sustainable management of its wild-caught fish.


Source: Evaluating Europe’s course to sustainable fisheries by 2020, WWF, 2018

A ClientEarth report from November 2019 [3] confirmed that little had changed, with Member States in fact actively pushing to exceed sustainable fishing limits in the North-east Atlantic. The European Environment Agency’s December 2019 report [4] showed that Europe is facing environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency.

The reformed CFP, which came into effect in 2013, had the explicit aim of making fisheries environmentally, economically and socially sustainable by 2020. Member States have blatantly failed to comply with articles of the CFP to achieve this objective and have fallen out of line of EU environmental legislation, putting the vision of seas full of life supporting a robust, sustainable Blue Economy in jeopardy.

A number of targets of UN Sustainable Development Goal 14  - Life Below Water - are also due to be achieved in 2020 [5], reflecting commitments by the EU to secure sustainable fishing and healthy marine environments beyond what is laid out in EU legislation. The EU and all Member States must take urgent action to deliver on their promises for the benefit of both present and future generations. In the face of the climate crisis and unprecedented marine biodiversity decline, overfishing, pollution and other devastating human activities in our ocean must cease.



References:

1. Council of the European Union press release for total allowable catches in the deep sea for 2019 and 2020: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/36958/table-eu-total-allowable-catches.pdf
   
   Council of the European Union press release for total allowable catches in the Baltic Sea 2020: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/41053/191014-15-baltic-tacs_table.pdf
   
   Council of the European Union press release for total allowable catches in the North-east Atlantic 2020: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/41894/table-for-press-release.pdf 
    
2. Evaluating Europe’s course to sustainable fisheries by 2020, WWF, 2018 http://www.wwf.eu/wwf_news/media_centre/?uNewsID=339493
    
3. https://www.clientearth.org/key-eu-countries-are-to-blame-for-unsustainable-fishing-limits-new-report/
    
4. https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/soer2020-europes-environment-state-and-outlook-report
    
5. SDG 14.2: By 2020, sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems to avoid significant adverse impacts, including by strengthening their resilience, and take action for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans. 
   
   SDG14.4: By 2020, effectively regulate harvesting, end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and destructive fishing practices, and implement science-based management plans in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yield (MSY) as determined by their biological characteristics.
   
   SDG 14.6: By 2020, prohibit certain forms of fisheries subsidies which contribute to overcapacity and overfishing, eliminate subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and refrain from introducing new such subsidies, recognising that appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and least developed states should be an integral part of the World Trade Organisation fisheries subsidies negotiation. 

Contact:
Larissa Milo-Dale
Marine Communications Officer
lmilodale@wwf.eu 
+32 483 26 20 86