Article Dagens Nyheter (Daily News) 29 January 2008
Eskil Erlandsson, Minister for Agriculture

"Premiums for scrapping to reduce fishing fleet by 30 per cent"

Overfishing in our waters is a cause for concern and it arouses strong feelings - it is important to the people of Sweden that fish stocks are preserved. This kind of commitment gives me, as the Minister responsible for fisheries, the confidence to press the issue of sustainable fishing. Our goal is to be able to eat fish without contributing to their extinction or having a guilty conscience. But in order to do this, we must make use of stocks, not use them up.

As a part of this process, the Government is investing SEK 200m to achieve a level of fishing that is sustainable. And to achieve a situation in which consumers can buy fish without having to think twice. We must find a balance between fishing capacity and fish stocks by adapting the fishing industry and improving the opportunities for fish stocks to recover.

Unfortunately, commitment to fish is not as strong everywhere. The expertise, the debate and the opinion we see in Sweden are conspicuous by their absence in many of our neighbouring countries. The majority of EU countries all too often push for higher quotas, even for cod fishing. This is, of course, a problem because fishing quotas are determined jointly in the EU. Despite the fact that Sweden only has 10 of 450 votes when decisions are made, it is essential for Sweden to be a driving force in the negotiations and to build alliances. I want to take on an active role and move decisions in the right direction. This is the only opportunity to save not only the cod stocks but many other fish stocks that are currently at risk. However, being the only party in negotiations to propose reduced quotas is a challenging situation.

In the best interests of the cod, I have felt it important to achieve real results. When taking part in EU negotiations, the former Social Democratic government chose to pay more attention to winning easy political points back at home than to protecting cod. By demanding a total stop to all cod fishing, the former government isolated Sweden in the negotiations, leaving the other countries to reach an agreement without Sweden´s influence. This resulted in the EU, as late as 2005, raising the 2006 quotas for the Baltic Sea. The line that I have taken has helped us instead to achieve a reduction in cod quotas over the past two years. The Baltic Sea quota has thus been reduced by 25 per cent. I am proud that we are actually now reducing quotas; but I am not happy with the speed of this process.

Another crucial measure for saving cod is to stop illicit fishing. It is unacceptable that the agreements we made in the EU are not being kept. The position that we have created for ourselves in the EU has contributed to the fact that the EU is now able to take vigorous measures against illicit fishing. Poland has admitted to overfishing, which has a huge impact on the development of stocks. Additional controls will be introduced and Poland´s quotas for next year will be reduced by the amount that their illicit fishing represented.

In Sweden, the Government has increased the appropriation for fishing controls by SEK 7m per year, and we are now proposing to give government agencies the power to introduce quick and direct penalties for the few fishermen who break the rules. Let us not forget that the majority of professional fishermen stick to the rules. But now those who do not are going to feel the consequences.

There is of course more to be done to help fish stocks recover if we are to be able to eat tasty and healthy fish in the future. Today, I am happy to say that the Government is providing just over SEK 200m to achieve a level of fishing that is sustainable. The money will be used to adapt the Swedish fishing fleet so as to enable long-term sustainable fish stocks, to protect these stocks and to develop better fishing equipment. The investment will be made over a six-year period and will be co-financed by the EU.

One key element of the process to achieve long-term secure fish stocks is to adapt the size of the fishing fleet to correspond to the size of the stocks. A smaller fleet means less pressure on fish stocks, which leads to a better financial situation for the fishing companies that remain.

The money will offer fishermen the opportunity to receive a grant to scrap their vessel and a personal severance payment to stop fishing. According to current estimates, the large-scale trawl fleet (pelagic fishing) needs to be reduced by approximately 30 per cent. For this reason, the Government has initiated a process of designing individually transferrable quotas for pelagic fishing. This work is being carried out in close cooperation with professional fishermen, and I believe that this will reduce the number of active fishing companies without fishermen having to terminate their activities with high levels of debt.

The money will also go towards increasing the use of more targeted equipment, so that fishermen only catch the fish they intend to catch, avoiding bycatches. This is especially important for the cod in the Cattegat, the Skagerrak and the North Sea, where mixed fishing is widespread. By increasing demands on fishermen to only catch the fish they are fishing for and that are of the right size, the number of fish that have to be thrown back - many of which die - will be reduced. This is why it is essential that investments be made into selective equipment.

One solution that has been advocated by professional fishermen is to introduce `days at sea´ which means that fishermen can pull up everything they catch over a certain limited number of days. I support this proposal and am pursuing it. Unfortunately, we do not have the support of that many other countries. Things are actually so bad at the moment that the number of tons of cod thrown overboard in the Cattegat is greater than the entire quota Sweden has been allocated for that area. This is why it was important that my colleagues and I recently took the decision to reduce bycatches to 10 per cent. We can reduce the quotas even more, but it will not be enough. What is more important in many areas is selective equipment, combined with new solutions such as days at sea.

I will soon be inviting all of the actors currently affecting fishing and fish stocks to a hearing. I would like to shape a clear and common Swedish line that enjoys wide support on how we can work towards exerting a more effective influence on the common fisheries policy. I do not believe for a second that each and every country would take responsibility for its fishing and its catches from the sea - it is important that we have a common fisheries policy. If we are to save the cod in the Baltic Sea and the Cattegat, we must cooperate with our neighbouring countries. I have therefore invited the Danish Minister to once again take part in discussions on how we can work together to improve the cod situation in the Cattegat.

Fish pay no heed to borders, and they are not only affected by fishing, but also by pollution, climate change, currents and other phenomena. If we are to be successful, we must achieve a broader consensus in the EU. There is currently a critical debate going on in Sweden saying that we should have got further in the political decision-making process. I welcome this debate and I think that consumer power is important. At the same time, it is not the Swedish Government that needs convincing, rather our neighbouring countries and others in the EU.

Cod management in the Skagerrak and the North Sea appears to have brought results, and scientists have observed a slight improvement. This gives us hope that we can also succeed with other fish stocks. It is my belief that through perseverance and clarity in the EU we can continue to influence decisions so that we can have robust fish stocks and a robust fishing industry allowing us to continue to enjoy our tasty and healthy fish.
Eskil Erlandsson