Europe's fish farmers need a Common Aquaculture Policy similar to that for agriculture.
That's the view of the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers (FEAP), which has responded to the recent ECA report showing European aquaculture is "stagnating" despite billions of euros in funding ploughed into the sector since 2014.
FEAP broadly agrees with the ECA's conclusion, arguing that the European Commission's strategy for aquaculture falls far behind neighbouring countries like Norway, the UK and Turkey, as well as the rest of the world.
In its report, the ECA suggested that the disappointing lack of progress in aquaculture development was due to ineffective spatial planning for aquaculture and complicated licensing procedures.
However, here FEAP disputes the ECA's analysis, arguing "these are mere symptoms of a problem and not the actual causes behind the situation".
Instead, the Federation says, "aquaculture growth is held back by excessive administrative burden caused by overzealous implementation of environmental regulations, an unlevel playing field with imports, and confusing information to consumers."
FEAP says that in order to unlock aquaculture's full potential, the EU needs to put food production as a strategic objective at the same level of importance as environmental protection. This should include setting quantitative production targets, the Federation argues.
"Food production in the EU must become an objective with similar level of importance as environmental protection," says FEAP.
But perhaps more importantly, FEAP proposes a more fundamental political and legal change to the EU's approach to aquaculture: the creation of a Common Aquaculture Policy.
FEAP suggests that this could be achieved in one of two ways, either by creating a special section in the Common Fisheries Policy to put aquaculture "on equal footing with capture fisheries", or by including aquaculture in the Common Agriculture Policy.
"A Common Aquaculture Policy could exercise the required pressure to align public administrations and solve the technical bottlenecks of spatial planning and licensing procedures, amongst others," the Federation said.
The Federation of European Aquaculture Producers is an organisation that represents the European fish farming profession and is based in Brussels. FEAP is composed of 24 national fish farming associations from 23 countries, both EU and non-EU. The combined yearly production of FEAP members surpasses 2,5 million tonnes of nutritious, safe, delicious, and environmentally sustainable fish.
