An international environmental group said yesterday that EU subsidies to the fishing industry have worsened overfishing in EU waters.
The EU spends an average of 54 million euros (US$73 million) in annual subsidies meant to stabilize fish stocks and strengthen EU fisheries’ competitiveness in foreign markets.
The EU tries to limit fishing by paying fisheries to destroy some of their ships — but, the group says, fisheries have received more money to build new ships and modernize existing ones than they have to reduce their fleets, giving fishermen the ability to catch even more fish.
“Public moneys have funded overfishing with devastating effects on the marine environment,” Pew Environment Group policy and research director Markus Knigge said. “There should not be any more financing for these measures.”
The report said 10 EU nations received 95 percent of EU fishing subsidies from 2000 to 2006. Spain received the most with 46 percent, and Italy, France, Greece, Denmark, Britain, Portugal, Germany, Poland and Sweden received another 49 percent.
The report said Spain spent more than 90 percent of its funds on projects that had a neutral or negative effect on fish such as threatened bluefin tuna. Poland was the only country that spent most of its subsidies on projects that benefited fish populations, the report said.
About 88 percent of stocks are overfished in EU waters, according to estimates for last year. The Pew report said at least nine of the EU’s key stocks of bluefin tuna, hake and monkfish are in decline because of newly installed nets that let fishermen catch larger numbers of fish.
The EU’s fisheries program no longer funds the construction of new ships, but continues to fund ship renovations. EU spokesman Johan Reyniers said the EU disagrees with the idea that these projects inherently cause overfishing.
“Support for vessel modernization fosters the use of more selective fishing gear and fishing techniques reducing the negative impact on the environment,” Reyniers said.
He said many of the issues in the report have already been addressed in the current fisheries program and the EU will continue to improve its policies to make fishing more sustainable.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion