Brussels, Jan 25 (EFE).- The Galician Minister of the Sea, Rosa Quintana, urged the European Commission (EC) on Wednesday to restore the balance between the environmental, social and economic objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
The policy defended the “necessary balance that must exist between environmental, social and economic objectives” in the Common Fisheries Policy, “which is in the process of evaluation”, and called on the Community Executive to “recover this principle as a pillar”, it indicated the Xunta de Galicia in a statement.
He did so during his participation in a meeting held at the headquarters of the European Parliament in Brussels between representatives of the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament and the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions on the application of the CFP and its future prospects.
Quintana pointed out that Galicia defends “better management taking into account the reality of the sector and adjusting to flexible and realistic objectives that allow the fishing activity to be modern and competitive.”
He also advocated for co-governance and prior consultation of the parties involved, as well as for the presentation of biological and socioeconomic reports, to avoid precedents such as the veto on bottom fishing.
At the end of last year, Spain filed an appeal before the Court of Justice of the European Union against the bans on bottom fishing in the northeast Atlantic decreed by the European Commission to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems.
Last week, the BNG registered in Congress a battery of initiatives to urge the State Government and the Xunta de Galicia to act to defend the interests of Galicia in the face of the possibility that the European Commission expands the sensitive areas of community waters in the northeast Atlantic with a new veto.
In a statement, BNG deputy Néstor Rego thus referred to the announcement by the Director General of Fisheries of the European Commission, Charlina Vitcheva, who indicated that the action plan for the conservation of fishing resources and marine ecosystems would be approved in February, which It will increase the marine protected areas, in addition to the 87 closed seasons established last October.
This decision, according to the BNG, would mean a new attack on the Galician fishing fleet after the decision made at the end of last year and which is still pending review with the risk that this inspection will not be carried out until next year 2024.
“We understand that it is necessary to address the current challenges set out in the European Green Deal to achieve sustainable, equitable and prosperous fishing for the future, in line with European blue growth, but the biggest of these must be to ensure that the European fishing sector has a future.” and work on an equal footing with those from other countries,” Quintana said today.
In this sense, he recalled the contribution of Galicia to the revision of the CFP through a decalogue of strategic lines included in the opinion prepared by the Galician Fisheries Council “almost a year ago”.
Said proposal establishes five strategic axes that go through achieving a common social and future fishing policy, fair fishing trade, sustainable fishing, adaptation to climate change and global co-governance as a basis for the sustainability of the activity, assured the Xunta.
A position, according to Rosa Quintana, that was agreed upon with the sector and that the community presented to the rest of the European fishing regions “with the aim of working in the same direction and that the demands of the coastal areas are heard, understood and taken into account in a possible update of the European fisheries regulations.