Towards investment in sustainable fisheries

Source: European Commission (EC) i, published on Thursday, July 10 2014.

Conference " Financing the transition to a sustainable blue economy" organised by The Prince's Charities

London, 10 July 2014

Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen,

It is with great pleasure that I am here with you today. With the topic of today's event you have come right to the crux of fisheries sustainability: namely how can we put fisheries and finance together so that it becomes an engine towards a sustainable blue economy.

This was also one of the objectives we wanted to achieve by reforming our Common Fisheries Policy so that we can

  • - 
    • a) 
      stop overfishing and end discarding
  • - 
    • b) 
      stop the top down decisions and make room for regionalization and
  • - 
    • c) 
      have sustainable standards also in the international part of pour policy.

When I read you discussion document "Towards investment in sustainable fisheries" I was very interested in what you call the three key drivers to increasing fisheries value: Stock health, operational efficiency and market value. Today I am going to focus on how our reformed fisheries policy will enhance these three key drivers.

Let me start with the stock health. Going from overfishing to healthy fish stocks is at the heart of the new European policy by maximizing catches, while still keeping them at a sustainable level in the long term. We are on the right track as we have moved from 5 healthy fish stocks in the EU in 2009 to 27 healthy stocks today. And for 2015 we can reach 30 fish stocks fished sustainably. The benefits are evident: We are increasing profits from fishing, because we can land more. At the same time it will become easier to generate financing. In fact we have real cases in the United Kingdom where banks are asking vessel owners to give proof that they hold quotas on healthy fish stocks as a condition for receiving financing.

This brings me to the second key driver, namely operational efficiency: I would like to mention three elements here. First: Achieving healthy stocks contributes to operational efficiency as fishermen need to spend less time and less fuel to catch their quotas. Second: Stopping to discard fish is a radical change but absolutely necessary. In the past 50 years Britain has discarded more than 1 billion pounds worth of cod. Our new policy ends this waste with a gradual obligation to land all catches. Third: Fishermen can tackle the problem of discarding by themselves. They can reduce unwanted catches through technical solutions they devise at regional level.

This regionalisation is a key element of the new policy. Making sure stakeholders take ownership in managing fisheries will mean they have a direct interest in having more healthy stocks to ensure that investment will come. We in turn are giving financial assistance so that fishermen can buy these technical solutions. For example they can buy more selective gear to better target what they want to sell on the market. We also fund more innovative gears that use less fuel and hence also increase operational efficiency. You mention a concrete example in your discussion document, namely the Brixham beam trawlers. They invested in innovative gear and are saving 20% fuel, cutting down discards by half and increasing the value of their catches to an additional 200 pounds per week.

Finally the third key driver of market value: Increasing market value is an absolute must if we want to fish less and earn more. Our new market organisation sets the framework for that. Our fishermen can use, for example, new labelling for fresh and locally caught fish or for fish that is caught with an environmentally friendly fishing method, to attract higher market prices. We also help fishermen to increase the market value of their products, with our new fund, through stocking, processing, marketing and selling using the new technologies and innovative solutions.

Indeed the new European Maritime and Fisheries Fund with 5 billion pounds over six years is the financial arm that will support the transition to sustainable fishing in the EU. We have decided to stop subsidies of the past which spent tax payer's money in an inefficient way. Let me give you some examples of what we are doing now: we fund training for young fishermen as well as life-long learning. We compensate fishermen for helping to protect and restore marine biodiversity. We fund marketing measures such as selling fresh fish directly to restaurants and hotels. Fishermen can also receive financial help for business advisory services: For example if they want to test if new products or techniques would be economically interesting. To encourage a better scientific basis we fund partnership between scientists and fishermen. To ensure that the rules are properly followed, support is available for control and enforcement programs. These ladies and gentlemen, are just some of the examples of available funding.

We can go a long way with a five-billion-pound wallet and it will certainly boost innovation and economic diversification in an unprecedented way. But in addition, we need private initiative in coastal areas, especially when it comes to the family-run business, the young start-up, the local projects.

In the past, for example, we have seen local groups across the EU use EU grants to find new ways of processing and packaging fish into luxury products, or make handbags out of fish skin, or use crab shells for medicinal products. I see a great potential here for further development to use fish, farmed algae and other marine resources for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. The Commission can only encourage this kind of bottom-up initiatives. These solutions are the ones that create jobs and improve the quality of life for the people along Europe’s coasts.

Of course EU funding is not enough. In other words I’m hoping that, with a total budget for the UK of nearly 200 million pounds, plus of course funds from national sources, we will be able to leverage private investment as well. We also want to move away from traditional grants and subsidies towards new alternatives such as revolving funds, loans, guarantees or venture capital funds.

Just as Green Bonds have managed to raise funds from investors to support projects that seek to mitigate climate change, we could be open to discuss Blue Bonds as an investment tool to mitigate a change towards sustainable fishing.

What we need is for private investors to be engaged. We need to join forces for an objective that is not entirely simple: letting the maritime economy prosper and help us out of the recession but at the same time letting that growth be smart and fair to the planet.

Your Royal Highness, it is these kinds of initiatives, like the one you have taken with today's event, that are so valuable. They can stimulate further thinking on how we can channel finance towards sustainable fishing. I am indeed taking home many interesting ideas from today's discussion, which I found very enriching.

Thank you.