The European Commission has threatened to impose drastic fishing bans unless EU fisheries ministers agree this week on measures to combat overfishing. The Fisheries Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, said the emergency measures, which would come into effect on January 1st, 2003, would include a total ban on cod and hake fishing in the Irish Sea.
As they arrived in Brussels yesterday for four days of talks, ministers from a number of countries, including Ireland, rejected a revised proposal from the Commission which would limit the impact of conservation measures on fishing communities. Mr Fischler warned the ministers it was too late to postpone action any further.
"If there is no willingness to get a deal on the basis of this compromise, then the Commission will have to adopt direct emergency measures, and we don't want to do that," he said.
The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, also rejected a Commission proposal to abolish the Irish Box, an area around the Irish coast stretching 50 miles out to sea. At present, the number of fishing vessels from countries outside Ireland allowed to fish in the Irish Box is strictly limited.
Mr Ahern described as "an affront" the Commission's proposal yesterday to allow fishing vessels from other EU member-states open access to Irish waters up to a 12-mile coastal limit.
"The Commission recognises that the Irish Box fishing ground is a sensitive zone and is proposing now to allow five times as many vessels to fish in the zone. To add insult to injury, the Irish industry will be made to pay for this by cutting back on their own number of days spent fishing," he said.
Worried by the collapse in stocks of fish such as cod, the Commission wants to make cuts of up to 80 per cent in fishing quotas and to reduce the size of fishing fleets. The measures, which could put tens of thousands of EU fishermen out of business, are opposed by six member-states, including France, Spain and Ireland.
Speaking before the meeting of fisheries ministers began yesterday, Mr Fischler said he understood the concern felt by fishermen about the impact of reform proposals.
"But they too should understand one thing - the parlous state of many stocks has not been simply dreamed up by the Commission; it is the unfortunate reality, documented point for point in the scientists' reports. It is the fruit of a failed fisheries policy, marked by years of excessive catch quotas, continued failure to heed scientists' warnings, overcapacity, the use of public money to maintain unsustainable levels of fishing pressure and the failure to enforce proper controls," he said.
The Dublin MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, who is fisheries spokesperson for the Greens in the European Parliament, called on the Government to abandon its opposition to drastic cuts in fishing quotas for whitefish.
But she said the Commission's proposal to allow open access to the Irish Box was misguided because the area is so difficult to police.
"If Ireland does not have effective control measures to ensure effective management, surveillance and control then it would be irresponsible to bring in new fishing fleets at this time. An increase in unregulated fishing in this protected zone ... would inevitably follow the introduction of new fleets," she said.