Fixed tuna traps in Europe: Sardinia
17.1.2014
Question for written answer P-000434-14
to the Commission
Rule 117
Francesca Barracciu (S&D)
According to ICCAT data, last year there was an increase in the number and weight of tuna catches in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. However, traditional methods of bluefin tuna fishing (by tuna traps), used in Italy, Portugal and Spain, continue to be substantially neglected because of the decisions taken by the Member States; these methods are thus being damaged by the allocation of fishing quotas. The way the quotas are being allocated is likely to lead to the serious and imminent disappearance of these fixed traps, because it is causing them to be economically unsustainable and is prompting the few remaining fishermen to sell their fishing quotas. Yet these methods are, comparatively speaking, the most sustainable in economic, social and environmental terms; they are also methods that create more jobs, and the companies that use these methods are located in parts of southern Europe which, at present, are plagued by high unemployment rates.
Indeed, the areas where the traps continue to resist are already suffering from deep economic pain — in Carloforte, Sardinia (Sulcis), for example. The tuna traps in these areas have become the centrepiece of a new development model that, in the medium‐ to long-term, seeks to gear itself to culture and to the recovery and showcasing of culinary, cultural and production traditions, with a view to developing the agri-food processing industry and tourism; this would enable the areas concerned to free themselves from their dependence, in economic and employment terms, on heavy industry, which, as we all know, is undergoing a severe crisis. Today, the tuna traps are still a major source of economic subsistence and their disappearance could irreparably damage the prospects of entire families, small local communities and their traditions.
Furthermore, since they provide other services which are not strictly related to tuna fishing, these fishing methods are markedly multifunctional. They act, in some Member States, as a sort of monitoring centre for tuna, and ICCAT itself considers them to be vital for the drawing up of its statistics.
Can the Commission therefore answer the following questions:
- 1.Does it not agree that the distribution of tuna quotas by the Member States should, if not benefit, at least restore the balance with regard to traditional fishing methods, given also the importance of their multifunctional nature?
- 2.What measures will it take to achieve this?
- 3.Would it not be advisable to promote, in all Member States, the granting of a kind of official status for fixed tuna traps as monitoring centres, given that even the ICCAT considers this to be essential?
OJ C 284, 26/08/2014