Great interest in EU's new fisheries policy
The current reform of the EU's fisheries policy has aroused great interest. This has been shown by the number of responses the EU Commission has received on its Green Paper on the new fisheries policy. The EU presented its proposal in April 2009 and invited authorities, organizations, industry and other stakeholders to comment on the proposal.
- Photographer
- Johannes Jansson/norden.org
By the end of last year the EU had received almost 400 responses to the hearing on the Green Paper, said Paul Degnbol from the EU Commission at a fisheries seminar held in Copenhagen on Wednesday during the Nordic Council's January meetings.
Over 20 of these came from the Nordic countries. The Nordic Council of Ministers and the Nordic Council have both previously submitted their views to the EU. Generally speaking the responses to the EU Commission welcome the reform of the fisheries policy, which is today considered an utter failure. The new fisheries policy should, amongst other things, control the considerable quantity of discards and also promote regionalisation, i.e. that decisions should be taken at lower levels than in Brussels.
The reformed EU fisheries policy is planned to come into force in 2013.
Wednesday's seminar, organised by the Nordic Council's Environment and Natural Resources Committee, was attended by Nordic parliamentarians and government representatives as well as representatives of the EU Commission and the EU Parliament.
