By 502 votes to 137, MEPs voted on February 6 “to adopt a common policy on sustainable fishing. That may seem trivial, but it is in reality a historical vote,” announces Libération The goal “is to reduce pressure on fish stocks to levels that can see them renewed by 2020.” This decision, writes La Vanguardia, represents a “shift in course”, especially because from 2014 onwards, discards – which make up 23 per cent of the catches of EU fleets – will be banned and all the fish caught will have to be brought back to port.
The need to curb the current overfishing and restore depleted fishing grounds and the awareness of the need to reduce the sizes of the fleets, are the pillars of the current shift to promote rational and sustainable fishing [... ] The fisheries policy embraces ethical values to put an end to the unacceptable habit of throwing back into the sea marine life that has no commercial value [...] Till now, the former fisheries policy has only encouraged overfishing of European stocks: 48 per cent of the estimated stocks in the Atlantic Ocean and close to 90 per cent in the Mediterranean Sea are overexploited.
See full Article: http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/3383251-tackling-overfishing-problem
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