Its time to bring EU fisheries negotiations into the light | HALIEUTIQUE MER ET LITTORAL | Scoop.it

Back in 2009, there was nowhere to hide for the European Commission. The state of EU fisheries at this time was characterised by “overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidises, low economic resilience and decline in the volume of fish caught by European fishermen.” In order to turn the ship around, the EU Common Fisheries Policy reforms in 2013, concluded that overfishing must end, and a hard-legal deadline was set for 2020. Despite expectations of this significant change, EU Fisheries Ministers and the European Commission have still held their December fisheries negotiations in Brussels behind closed doors. Following these ‘dark days’ behind closed doors, came public announcements that they had sanctioned overfishing in the North East Atlantic for another year (despite the 2020 legal deadline).