Last fish supper in Rochdale

Fish will disappear from the table unless more fishermen are forced off the seas, Rochdale Euro-MP Chris Davies has warned.

The European Commission says that 88% of fish stocks in EU waters are being exploited beyond their rate of recovery.

But EU Fisheries Ministers meeting in Brussels this week are discussing measures to support the fishing industry and protect it from the current increase in fuel prices.

Some of the money is to be used to support a significant decommissioning of vessels but the meeting is likely to discuss payments to crews stranded by the fuel crisis so they can stay in business and start fishing again when oil prices fall.

Euro-MP Chris Davies describes such support as ‘short-sighted madness’
and is urging Ministers to put the long-term survival of fish before the profits of fishermen.

He said: “Deep sea vessels will suffer most in the current fuel crisis.
They travel longer distances in huge vessels to hoover fish to the brink of mass extinction.

“We should allow a free market to operate and the last thing we need are subsidies to wipe out our dwindling fish stocks.”

Mr Davies, the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman in the European Parliament, claims that current fishing practices are a ‘disaster’
tolerated only because their effects cannot be seen beneath the waves.

He said: “Governments across Europe are still hell-bent on fishing to the point of extinction despite every warning that comes from scientists in Brussels.

“The irony is that if we allow fish stocks time to recover, and then use them more sensibly, we will be able to catch more fish than we do now and there will be more jobs for fishermen.”