Europêche, the main lobby group of Europe’s fishing industry, is lending its full support to the EU farmers’ fight against Brussels’ unreasonable environmental and sustainability mandates.
The organization’s Director General Daniel Voces de Onaíndi said Europêche is in favor of the joint demonstrations organized in France and Spain and “fully shares the frustration expressed by farmers over the unbalanced and unworkable European policies that are strangling our businesses across the EU.”
The statement opens the door for more such protests by the bloc’s fishers, either by themselves or with the farmers.
This joining of forces could not come at a more inopportune time for the EU, which, after months of farmers’ protests, some striking at its very heart, is already facing significant opposition to their authoritarian pursuit of various ‘sustainability’ schemes.
Europêche, Voces de Onaíndi stressed, believes that European fishermen and farmers have “shared concerns” about the excessive European regulations imposed by both the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
On Saturday, March 9th, farmers and fishermen held a joint demonstration in the north of France, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France’s leading fishing port. The protest’s slogan was stop the “Brussels diktat.”
Agriculture and fisheries are “two parallel worlds that Brussels is sacrificing with its dictatorship that no longer protects its people but crucifies them,” announced Coordination rurale in a press release.
The demonstrators—mainly small-scale producers—were demanding an end to Brussels’ red tape, a drop in fuel taxes, and an increase in incomes, as existing regulations have led to decreased productivity and increased operational costs.
If present conditions persist, they argued, the way of life in rural and coastal regions like Boulogne-sur-Mer would be under serious threat.
“We’re fighting the same battles as the fishermen because the issues are the same”, said Jean-Louis Fenart, president of le Coordination rurale du Pas-de-Calais, on Europe 1 during the demonstration there.
On February 26th, the two sectors held a similar joint demonstration in front of the European Commission’s office in Madrid.
While the Commission recently granted some simplification measures to the CAP, fishers have not yet been granted the same.MEPS from the center-right EPP have now called on the Commission to drop certain environmental bans.
For its part, the European fishing industry is calling on the EU authorities “to rebalance the different objectives of the EU Green Deal and the EU Common Fisheries Policy by strengthening the socio-economic and food security dimensions,” Europêche’s Voces de Onaíndi said.
Whether the Commission will accede to such demands remains to be seen.
What is amply clear in the wake of their main lobby group’s open advocacy of protest is that Europe’s fishermen now have nothing holding them back from exercising that right.
