Almost 90 organizations gather to end 'harmful' subsidies

EUROPEAN UNION
Friday, March 18, 2011, 03:40 (GMT + 9)

Seas At Risk and 88 other European and international organisations have called on the President of the European Commission (EC), Jose Manuel Barroso, to honour the EC's commitment to end environmentally harmful subsidies.

In 2006, the European Union (EU) committed to proposing a roadmap for the removal of environmentally damaging subsidies by 2008.

The EC reiterated this commitment in 2007 and in 2010 the Europe 2020 Strategy stressed the need to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies.

This is in addition to numerous calls by EU heads of state and the European Parliament (EP) for the phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies.

“The EC can no longer postpone the publication of the roadmap for the elimination of environmentally harmful subsidies. It is high time that the Commission honours its own commitments and responds to the requests of both the Parliament and the Council” said Monica Verbeek, Executive Director of Seas At Risk.

“It is outrageous that in this day and age public funds are still being used to subsidise activities that are damaging the environment and the economic activities that depend on it.”

Seas At Risk warns that the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is advancing without any obvious analysis of the environmental effects of the massive subsidies handed out in this sector, although subsidies are known to contribute to maintain or increase fleet overcapacity and overfishing.

Seas At Risk and OCEAN2012 are campaigning for a reform of the CFP which ensures that public funds are only used to deliver public goods, such as research or control activities.

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