France24 –AFP, 16 Jnauary 2018
STRASBOURG
(FRANCE) (AFP) – The European Parliament called Tuesday for a ban on electric
pulse fishing in the European Union, defying Brussels which wants the
experimental practice in the North Sea done on a larger scale.
The
parliament, the EU's only directly-elected body, will now try to strike a
compromise with the European Commission, the bloc's executive, and the European
Council, which groups the 28 member states.
MEPs voted
by 402 members to 232 in favour of the ban, while 40 abstained.
"It is
a wonderful victory against a terribly harmful kind of fishing," said
Yannick Jadot, a French member of the Greens party, who took part in the
campaign against the practice.
Pulse
fishing involves dragging electrically-charged lines just above the seafloor
that shock marine life up from low-lying positions into trawling nets.
EU rules
allow member states to equip up to five percent of their fleets with
electrodes, and the method has been adopted in particular by Dutch vessels
fishing for sole.
The
European Commission wants to maintain the southern part of the North Sea as the
venue for pulse fishing but to remove the five-percent limit.
Karmenu
Vella, the commissioner for fisheries, argued that pulse fishing is safer for
the environment than beam trawling as it reduces carbon emissions and does less
damage to the seabed.
Beam
trawling involves a large net attached to a heavy metal beam of up to 12 metres
in length which is dragged across the seabed, ploughing it up.
Rebecca
Hubbard, director for the activist group Our Fish, praised the vote as a
"huge win" for European seas, low-impact fishing and the public.
EU parliament calls for ban on electric pulse fishing https://t.co/Ojo4KvvpRt pic.twitter.com/lEXiYidfR6— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 16, 2018
More than
200 top chefs across Europe have pledged to stop sourcing seafood
obtained by
electric pulse fishing.
|
The black clouds hanging over the boats in Dutch ports are not the remnants of wild winter gales, but harbingers of another devastating storm brewing for Dutch fishermen pic.twitter.com/V4khrxhEnY— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 21, 2018
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