EU subsidies contributing to problem of over-fishing, study finds

A THIRD of EU subsidies for the fishing industry over the past 12 years went to building bigger fishing vessels while another third went to scrapping fleet, a new website on where the money goes has revealed.

The research shows that EU funding has been fuelling the over-fishing that has left more than 80% of species in danger, the author of the website, Pew Environment Group, says.

Using figures gleaned from the European Commission, it shows that Spain is by far the biggest recipient of subsidies,having received more than 44% of the total over the past few years, followed by Italy with 12%.

It shows that Ireland got about €166 million from 1994 to 2006. This was about 2% of the total, more or less evenly divided between money going to the owners of fishing vessels and to ports, processing companies and other non-vessel uses.

The subsidies to Irish registered vessels varied from €399 to €1.94m to a boat called at the time Mark Amay, but which has since been sold.

The second largest recipient vessel was the India Rose which got €1.18m. It was registered in Ireland but its home port was Cuxhaven in Germany.

The biggest single scheme was €35m to increase aquaculture production, followed by the construction of new vessels at €25m while modernisation of boats got over €14m.

Sligo is listed as the port that received the most money at over €9.7m, followed by Dublin with €6.7m and Skibbereen with €6.6m.

However, the information does not give a very complete picture, as Mike Walker of Pew Environmental Group points out.

There is no mention of one of the country’s biggest fishing ports, Killybegs, in Co Donegal, for instance. Instead Sligo is listed. This may be because vessel registration can be carried out only in certain towns, Gerard O’Flynn of the Federation of Irish Fishermen said.

Who owns the vessels is not listed, since member countries up to last year did not have to give this information.

The money goes to the vessel owners and, according to some sources across the EU, these include multinational companies and investment funds.

“We do not have the data because the countries did not have to report these details for the last budget period up to 2006.

“Under the new budget this information should be available for 2007 and we expect it to be released in the next few weeks,” he said.

The site divides the way the money was spent in each country into good, bad and ugly. It shows that in 2000 Ireland spent three quarters of its money on what Pew considers were bad investments, such as new boats that would increase fishing capacity.

The rest was on subsidies that had the potential to encourage over fishing.

Mr Walker said that everybody has an opportunity to press for the reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy since the European Commission has asked for views on reforms. Go to: ec.europa.eu/fisheries/reform/consultation_en.htm The information is at www.fishsubsidy.org