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AS Scotland's fish catching industry leaders warned that European fishing reform must not turn out to be a wasted opportunity, EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki told Fishupdate that her proposals, due to be unveiled later today, would take an ambitious approach and give more responsibility to fishermen, along with increased support for aquaculture.
Promising a comprehensive package of measures, The Commissioner said: "EU fisheries must be sustainable and efficiently managed; actors on the ground have to be fully involved and fishermen shall be responsible for delivering results, but free to find the best way to do so.
"Wasteful practices such as discards must come to an end; and at last but not least, as any other policy, the new CFP has to be coherent to maximise its impact.. The priorities and the rules it sets for Europe have to be consistent with those we negotiate with countries outside the European Union."
Ms Damanaki also said the EU had to take account of aquaculture as an integral part of the fishing sector and it needed to develop conditions for the market to be functional.
She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning that fishermen would be allowed to land more or less all they catch, adding there would be financial help with providing storage and processing facilities to avoid creating a fish mountain.
Yesterday the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, representing the most important sector of the UK fleet, warned that its members were struggling against a background of ill-fitting regulations and bureaucratic red tape, ever-increasing restrictions on catching opportunity and spiralling fuel prices.
Bertie Armstrong, SFF chief executive, said: "Over the past few years the SFF have been lobbying hard to ensure the reform of the CFP is meaningful and contains real and practical measures that ensures our fisheries are much more effectively and efficiently managed. There is still the real fear that the reform will end up as a wasted opportunity and that would be a tragedy."
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