In a world of giant trawlers and fish-farming operations, Gwenaël Pennarun still sets out most days from this Breton village to catch sea bass the old-fashioned way, with baited hooks.
It is a way of life, and work, that he hopes the European Union will continue to support, depending on a coming vote on its fishing policies.
Early on a crisp and windy morning recently, Mr. Pennarun, 50, was a few miles offshore in the Bay of Biscay, hooking minnows and playing out several dozen long lines with an efficiency born of 30 years on the job. Though the risk of a fatal fall overboard is always present for someone working alone, he nevertheless appeared oblivious to the tilt of the deck and the soaking spray as his 8.5-meter, or 28-foot, aluminum boat climbed and plunged with each wave.
A kilogram or 2.2 pounds of line-caught sea bass fillets, known in French as bar de ligne, can retail for more than 100 euros, or $137, in a Paris fish market, about double that of trawled fish and perhaps four times that of most farmed. The line-caught fish reach the dock fresh, and often alive, not frozen like trawled fish, and many customers prefer the taste and texture of the wild fish to that of farmed. Eco-conscious consumers may also be willing to pay more for fish caught according to a method that groups like Greenpeace endorse for sustainability.
While he is able to support his family, like many artisanal fishermen and women here Mr. Pennarun worries that his livelihood is at risk from industrial fishing operations subsidized by the European Union. Even the Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, has acknowledged that the subsidies, worth hundreds of millions of euros each year, support a fleet that is two to three times as large as is ecologically or commercially sustainable.
A vote by the European Parliament, set for Wednesday in Strasbourg, France, could determine whether those subsidies continue to support the big-fleet approach or, instead, help pay for changes meant to steer the European Union’s saltwater fishing industry toward a more environmentally sound future.
While the amount of money about 6.5 billion euros for the bloc’s Common Fisheries Policy is not in dispute, the funding targets may be the subject of hot debate
Fishery ministers from the 28 European Union member states and members of the fisheries committee of Parliament back the industry in seeking to steer the money to be paid out in installments over seven years beginning in 2014 toward things like engine replacement, first boats for beginning fishers and scrapping older craft.
On the other side stand people including Maria Damanaki, the European fisheries commissioner, who led an overhaul of the Common Fisheries Policy in May that was meant to end overfishing and stop the widely criticized practice of discarding perfectly good, but unwanted, species at sea.
Ms. Damanaki and conservationists oppose financing new fishing boats and engines, saying that the goal should instead be to reduce the fleet and finance the new environmental policy.
They have been joined by 200 fishery scientists from around the world, who urged Parliament in an open letter to move away from direct fleet subsidies, and aim the money at compliance with management rules, data collection, scientific research and stock assessments.
Government-subsidized fishing is a worldwide concern for those who fear depletion of stocks. Rashid Sumaila, a scientist at the University of British Columbia who presented subsidies data to the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee last week, estimates that the global industry receives about $35 billion a year in subsidies, of which the biggest portion about 20 percent is fuel aid that allows ships to go farther and stay out longer in search of fish.
Brussels is not the only source of handouts for the European industry. Fuel subsidies in the form of direct payments and diesel-tax exemptions amount to hundreds of millions of euros of additional aid each year, while member states steer millions of euros more from their own budgets, according to the European Commission. None of that money is on the table for discussion, suggesting that despite Ms. Damanaki’s efforts, government-financed overcapacity will not soon go away.
Javier Garat, president of Europêche, a fishing industry group in Brussels, acknowledged that the subsidy program had been a lightning rod for criticism, but said the public’s understanding of the issue was simplistic.
Fishers need financial help adapting to the changing regulatory environment, he said, because without that support, it would be very difficult to comply.
2013 The New York Times Company