Question 15386 — aquaculture and professional fishing

Summary

Ms Josette Manin draws the attention of the Minister of Agriculture and Food to the European Commission's decision of November 2018 to once again make the fishing fleets of the French outermost regions eligible for public aid, for renewal purposes. The new guidelines on state aid in the fisheries sector have just been published in the Official Journal of the European Union of 22 November 2018 [Communication from the Commission amending the Guidelines for the examination of State aid in the fisheries and aquaculture sector (2018/C 422/01)]. This new text authorizes, for the outermost regions only, the financing of the renewal of fishing fleets through state aid. This decision by the European Commission obviously constitutes a particularly positive and essential step forward. so important was it to re-oxygenate this profession whose main working tool was becoming obsolete, difficult to operate and no longer reasonably provided all the guarantees necessary for a practice of fishing, in the territories, which is economically sustainable while being reliable and safe for the fishermen, but also fully respectful of the fishery resource and the environment. The deputy observes that the prescription made since 2008 by the European Commission to the fisheries of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin, Guyana, Reunion then Mayotte (which has achieved OR status since 2012) to request public aid or structural funds (the EMFF) aimed at the modernization and renewal of fishing vessels was penalizing and entirely paradoxical. It was all the more incomprehensible as the France occupies, in particular thanks to its overseas territories, the second place in the world in terms of maritime domain with 10.2 million km² of exclusive economic zone. Indeed, while the outer limits of the continental shelf off the coast of Martinique and Guadeloupe, Guyana, but also New Caledonia and the Kerguelen Islands were widened by nearly 500,000 km², by four decrees of September 25, 2015, in application of Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of ​​December 10, 1982 (known as the “Montego Bay Convention”), fishing professionals have not really benefited from this achievement given the obsolescence and obsolescence of their fishing fleet. The MP reminds him that the fishing industry is today in strong tension in Martinique and Guadeloupe while these combine territories a phenomenon of chlordecone pollution which gradually contaminates the coastal strip, new variables due to global warming and the full extent of which we have not yet measured, but also the influx of invasive species (lion fish or even sargassum algae) which alter the aquatic environment and further reduce exploitable fishing areas and fishery resources. She insists that the The number of fishermen in the overseas territories is aging and it is crucial to prepare a perfectly trained and better equipped succession. In view of all the issues presented, she would like to know how it intends to quickly support fishing professionals in these territories, with the overseas territorial authorities and the competent professional organizations, in order to develop a concerted and ambitious renewal of the fishing fleet via public aid and, more generally, a sector project that is coherent, attractive and sustainable.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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