Question 12683 — aquaculture and professional fishing

Summary

Ms. Manon Bouquin draws the attention of the Minister of Agriculture, Agri-Food and Food Sovereignty to the disaster suffered by the Thau lagoon shellfish farmers. Since December 2025 and the closure of the pond, they have been banned from selling their production at the very time of the year when they generate most of their turnover. The causes of this contamination are known. They result from sanitation network failures which lead, under the pressure of weather episodes that are recurrent and predictable, to the overflow of wastewater contaminated with norovirus. The structural measures necessary to prevent these disorders have unfortunately still not been completely implemented. Emergency measures therefore had to be mobilized by local authorities and the State, to the tune of 1.5 million euros, to compensate for part of the losses which immediately weigh on the cash flow of hundreds of companies on which the economy and attractiveness of the Thau basin depends. The situation, of which shellfish farmers are the victims and not the perpetrators, would however require greater support. In particular, it would be appropriate for the European Fund for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture (EMFFA) to be mobilized to compensate the economic losses of shellfish farmers in the Etang de Thau, as it has been possible in the past in the face of other contaminations, in the Atlantic basins in particular. Furthermore, the shellfish farmers of the Etang de Thau are concerned about possible exceeding of the de minimis aid thresholds in which the planned or future compensation could be counted. In 2022 in particular, specific aid to businesses Shellfish farming operations aimed at mitigating rising fuel costs were subject to these de minimis rules. This had led to administrative complexity and, in some cases, resulted in overruns and reimbursement obligations to the European Union. This is why the MP asks the Minister if the Government plans to negotiate with the European Union the addition of a temporary measure to the program of FEAMPA in order to compensate the economic losses of shellfish farmers in the Etang de Thau. She also asks if she plans to negotiate with the European Union the exclusion of emergency aid to shellfish farming companies in the Etang de Thau from the calculation of de minimis aid, or the raising of their threshold beyond the limit of 30,000 euros over three years.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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