Members of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Committee elected their president and four vice-presidents for the next two and a half years during the constitutive meeting on Tuesday July 23. The new commission has 27 full members, following approval by the plenary on July 19.
Spanish MEP Carmen Crespo Diaz (European People’s Party, EPP), Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development of the Andalusian regional government and already vice-coordinator of the Agriculture Committee, was elected by acclamation chair of the Fisheries Committee. She succeeds Pierre Karleskind from Finistère who left the position he had held since 2020 following the European elections. The Dutchman Sander Smit (PPE) was elected first vice-president and the Italian Giuseppe Milazzo (ECR), author of an important report on the future of the common fisheries policy, second vice-president. The French Stéphanie Yon-Curtin (Renew) will be the third vice-president and the Swede Jessica Polfjärd (PPE) the fourth vice-president.
Common policy reform
We will defend the fishing sector as a key socio-economic sector for the EU. It plays a strategic role in guaranteeing food security in Europe. One of the priorities is to have a constructive dialogue with all stakeholders with a view to reforming the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), in order to adapt it to the real needs of the sector, a sector that wants to modernize to be more competitive and which needs to reduce the bureaucratic burden that it is currently facing,” commented Carmen Crespo Diaz after the vote. Adding “that the new CFP must be a balance between environmental requirements and the competitiveness and profitability of the fishing fleet. We will also work during this mandate on new lines of support for fishing and aquaculture activity by encouraging generational renewal and respect for decarbonization.
The Fisheries Committee will indeed have to tackle two sensitive issues. The reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) therefore, but also the renegotiation of the trade agreement with the United Kingdom in 2026 with the issue of accessibility to British waters, very uncertain after the latest fishing bans announced by the United Kingdom.
This article is originally published on lemarin.ouest-france.fr
