Examination of Witnesses (Questions 600-609)
Mr Poul Degnbol, Mr Ernesto Peñas and Ms Lisa
Borges
7 MAY 2008
Q600 Viscount Ullswater: We have
heard from a lot of stakeholders that perhaps they see the future
for the CFP being more organised down RACs, and I think the general
tone has been positive as regards Commission engagement with the
RACs but some disappointment was expressed at the Commission's
apparent rejection of the North Western Waters RAC's proposal
with regard to the future management of hake. It was put to us
that where the scientists and the stakeholders agreed it was surprising
that the Commission then wanted a rather more demanding management
plan and I wondered if you had any comment to make about that.
Also, I would like to hear what your feelings are about the establishment
of RACs and how they are getting on in terms of the consensus
that they bring.
Mr Peñas: On the first one, I wonder
whether there is perhaps some kind of misunderstanding. On the
northern hake we do have a management plan that has achieved its
objectives. That management plan requires that when we have achieved
those objectives for two years in a row we should go to the next
step, which is to make a proposal on a long-term management plan
that will focus on the maximum sustainable yield for this fishery.
Now what has happened is that we have presented our papers. The
objectives of the first recovery plan have been achieved. We have
now a fishery which is at the level of the precautionary biomass,
so that was achieved, but now it is built into that recovery plan
that we should move automatically to the second phase, so what
we have done so far in that respect is to present our ideas in
a consultation paper to the RACs on what this second phase will
consist of. Basically, the reaction has been that now we are being
overly ambitious over this. Actually what we are doing with this
second phase is not only fulfilling the obligations of the Commission
in the context of the previous phase, so first of all to respond
to a legal obligation, but, more importantly, this new approach
that we are suggesting for the northern hake is simply the kind
of approach that all Member States and the Community signed up
to in the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg,
which had the objective to bring all fisheries to maximum sustainable
yield levels by 2050. We take this commitment seriously and this
certainly inspires all our proposals so this is exactly what we
are doing. The problem from a number of meetings we had with the
North Western RAC is that they are relatively satisfied because
the fishery now is not over-fished; it is on precautionary levels,
but they consider perhaps that it is too ambitious to go further
than this. On the question of our experience in RACs, generally
speaking the experience is very good, particularly because for
those of us in this house who have a certain number of years'
experience perhaps the most important thing we have achieved so
far is to dramatically improve the quality of our dialogue with
the stakeholders. Only a few years back I remember some meetings
with the stakeholders here in Brussels in which they were basically
shouting at us and telling us such sophisticated arguments as,
"You only look at the fish but not at the fishermen",
and some meetings did not go much beyond that. Since then I think
things have improved quite dramatically and now the fishermen's
representatives, put it this way, speak our language and they
try to convince us of their suggestions by telling us, "This
will contribute to reducing discards, which is your objective,
Commission", so I think we are increasingly talking the same
kind of language. In terms of the follow-up of their suggestions,
I think that the picture is mixed so far. We have followed a great
many of their suggestions and proposals but others we have not
followed so far. I think the biggest challenge we have is to establish
a system where our reaction to their proposals can be perhaps
more predictable. We have tried to do this by telling them that
we will be accepting their proposals insofar as they go in the
direction of achieving the objectives of the Common Fisheries
Policy, but, of course, this is easier said than done and there
is ample room for manoeuvre to interpret this. Both parts, the
Commission and the stakeholders in RACs, are in this learning
curve in which we know much better what are the criteria for us
to accept their ideas, and our ultimate goal is for them to be
the measure of their own success, in other words that they should
know before they tell us whether a certain proposal is acceptable
or not. If it goes against sustainability of the stocks then they
should take for granted that we cannot follow that, but if it
goes in that direction they should be sufficiently reassured that
they have a fair chance that the Commission will support it.
Q601 Viscount Ullswater: Is that
not saying, "As long as you agree with us we will agree with
you"?
Mr Peñas: No, not exactly.
Q602 Viscount Ullswater: They are
looking for a little bit more flexibility, are they not?
Mr Peñas: Not exactly. I will try to
explain the point a little bit better. The question is that the
Common Fisheries Policy has objectives that have been established
by the Council of Ministers and that are certainly an obligation
for the Commission services and for national governments and for
stakeholders as well. The Commission is the guardian of the treaty,
so it is our obligation to make sure that those objectives are
respected. We can have flexibility as to how we get there but
we cannot have flexibility as to whether those objectives should
be ignored or achieved. We have to be guardians of this and we
have to say, "If the objective of the Common Fisheries Policy
is to achieve fish stocks and fisheries that are sustainable then
everything that goes towards sustainability we have to support.
Everything that goes against it we cannot support". We can
have flexibility as to the means, the modalities and the methods
to get there but we cannot compromise on the objectives.
Q603 Earl of Arran: Just continuing
with the RACs, which I think is extremely interesting, of course,
last year their financial position was made much more secure.
We understand that they still have several problems, one of which
is the need to find a guarantor and the second is from accounting
rules preventing transfers between budget lines within their budgets.
There is obviously a lot of goodwill among Member States concerning
the future of the RACs and their finances but it would seem also
that there is not so much goodwill from other Member States about
their future and their financing. Would you like to enlarge upon
the financial situation in the future?
Mr Peñas: The Commission has shown recently,
as you mention, that we are prepared to provide the funding that
is necessary for the RACs to carry out their work. It is clearly
essential that RACs are given the financial means to do this,
and providing some level of public funds is also important because
among stakeholders you find some people who represent strong fishing
companies, and I could mention some well-known companies such
as the pelagic fishing companies that are strong enterprises and
that are capable of doing this and following up all the necessary
work in the RACs perhaps without public funding, but many other
sectors represent more traditional fishing where, unless there
is public funding, they will have trouble to be represented, to
attend the meetings, to make a significant contribution, so from
that point of view we tend to think that in order to ensure equal
opportunities for everyone within RACs for different segments
and different levels of income and organisation it is essential
to ensure adequate public funding. On the other hand, I think
that this has to be done in the perspective of gradually empowering
RACs to run their own business and be responsible for the work,
so we have to find a combination which provides them with sufficient
boost at the beginning so that they get their organisation running,
but in the long run tells them, "Gradually you should learn
to walk on your own". What is the reason why some Member
States are more forthcoming than others in this? Probably the
Member States who are a bit more reluctant can tell you better
than we can, but my personal impression is that perhaps there
is a slightly different perception of the role of RACs in some
different Member States. In some Member States perhaps RACs are
still seen as an open door to re-nationalisation of the Common
Fisheries Policy and that may explain the reason why some of them
are a bit more reticent, but this is a personal opinion.
Q604 Earl of Arran: For instance,
the Spanish do not believe in the decentralisation of power that
much, the power involved from the centre, so to speak, and therefore
they might be rather reluctant to part with future financing within
RACs, but we shall come to that when we see the Spanish gentleman
later on.
Mr Peñas: I think so, yes.
Q605 Chairman: Can I move on to control
and enforcement? You mentioned the persistent problem of black
fish. The evidence we have would seem to suggest that the registration
of buyers and sellers has had a significant impact on decreasing
the level of black fish. Is that your view and one of the difficulties
the uneven implementation of the registration?
Mr Peñas: On the registration issue,
certainly we are convinced that this question of the registration
of buyers and sellers has provided much better control of quotas
in the UK. Our control services basically control the controllers,
as you know. They are quite clear on this, and so we believe this
has been a substantial success. Then what is the problem? Not
only in the UK but in many Member States the problem is not so
much what goes through the normal channels, which in some cases
works relatively well, but what goes outside the normal channels
and is basically fish sold to certain factories that does not
necessarily go through official channels. Another difficulty is
the fact that there is an increasing number of vessels that are
landing abroad and therefore the control of those catches in some
cases is realised by the coastal state but the data on this is
not necessarily transferred back to the country of origin of the
vessel and in some cases then some of these catches may go unregistered
for that Member State, so this is another problem. There is a
variety of problems. I am not a specialist in control but what
I can say is that our control colleagues have confirmed that the
registration of buyers and sellers has provided a big improvement
in the UK. I would not say that in the UK this is today a big
problem but certainly marketing of fish outside the legal channels
is still one of the biggest problems overall in Europe.
Q606 Earl of Dundee: In enforcing
the Common Fisheries Policy what do you consider to be the respective
roles of the Commission and the Member States authorities and
the Community Fisheries Control Agency?
Mr Peñas: As you know, the control is
primarily and fundamentally a Member State responsibility. There
have been attempts, particularly on the occasion of the last reform,
to try to enhance the role of the Commission but this was not
considered acceptable from Member States and therefore we stay
where we were a few years back, that is, that Member States have
full responsibility for control. There the role of the Commission
is, as I said before, to control the controllers. It is just to
evaluate how Member States are doing the job in controlling their
own fleets. As to the Control Agency, the Control Agency does
not have any large powers as compared to the Commission. Basically,
the Control Agency was created to try to make economies of scale
in control. In many fisheries in Europe you will find an assembly
of vessels from different Member States being deployed in one
fishing area. If those vessels were all controlled independently
by the control systems of different Member States you would find
a number of duplications in the effort and therefore it was very
strongly felt that there was a lot to be gained from trying to
pull together the national control means of Member States through
joint deployment plans, to find economies of scale in order to
make much better and more efficient use of the very expensive
and very limited control means, and that is exactly the role of
the Agency. The Agency does not have universal powers. The Agency
still cannot set fines to individual fishermen. The Commission,
incidentally, cannot set fines to individual fishermen either.
That is the role of the control systems of the Member States.
The role of the Commission, as I said, is to check how Member
States are doing the job and the role of the Agency is to try
to develop joint control deployment plans so as to pull together
and increase the efficiency of the national means of control.
Q607 Earl of Dundee: Nevertheless,
what new enforcement tools at the disposal of the Commission or
the other bodies are proving to be useful?
Mr Peñas: I think perhaps the biggest
powers of the Commission are those when it has evidence that a
Member State is not doing its job; then it can take different
actions. It can take a Member State to the court or it can even
take direct action and I will mention two examples. Recently it
was felt in Poland that the level of control of the catches of
cod in the Baltic and other species (but particularly cod) were
so bad that they were fishing easily twice their national quota.
On the basis of the evidence gathered by the Commission inspectors
the Commission made a case for establishing a penalty to Poland
to the effect of withdrawing from the Polish quota all the estimated
catches above and beyond the Polish national quota. This ended
up in a procedure recently adopted by the Commission whereby Poland
for the next four years will have its own national quota cut back
in order to pay back what they fished in excess in previous years.
This has been, I think, a system whereby the Commission has exerted
its powers to try to discipline a Member State. Another example
is that we also have clear evidence that some of the national
quotas for blue fin tuna in the Mediterranean have been so clearly
overshot that the Commission is using its powers to close the
fishery before Member States recognise that the quota has been
fished because the statistics cannot be trusted. We have gathered
with our inspectors sufficient evidence showing that the quotas
for blue fin tuna are not being respected and therefore in order
to preserve this highly endangered species we needed to close
the fishery even before the Member States recognised that they
had exhausted their quotas. Those are two examples of the Commission
using its powers.
Q608 Earl of Dundee: What you have
described may be existing constraints but if some of them prove
reluctant to apply existing rules might it be helpful to place
additional enforcement obligations on Member States themselves?
Mr Peñas: Yes indeed, that will be our
intention, but the problem is that this question of control touches
upon a question of national sovereignty and every time we discuss
with Member States controlling their fishermen they say that is
a question of national sovereignty and they are not prepared to
give away powers to Brussels, to be blunt. This is the difficulty
we have always had and whether this is going to change I do not
know.
Q609 Chairman: We have been just
over an hour. It has been an excellent session. Thank you very
much. I am afraid we have not covered many important topics that
we would have liked to cover. Would it be possible for us to follow
some of those topics up through writing to you?
Mr Peñas: Yes, no problem.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
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