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A RETURN to the sea can generate new jobs for young people and ensure Europe's food security through fish, European Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki told an American audience.
The Commissioner was making a keynote speech at the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Stakeholder Roundtable at the Meridian Institute in Washington, when she said that after all the challenges of recent times, "It's time to go back to the sea."
"A return to the sea can create the high-value jobs that our young people are rightly asking for. It can regenerate coastal communities, it can ensure Europe's food and energy security and it can improve our competitiveness in emerging industries.
"This is our blue growth policy. It is also a corner stone to achieve our goals for climate change Oceans are significant absorbers of carbon; ocean circulation influences the mildness or severity of terrestrial seasons. The energy sector is the perfect example. The oil spill accident in the Gulf of Mexico,the power plant failure in Japan after the tsunami - these terrible accidents are speaking volumes. They are saying: enough with dangerous, polluting technologies! Look for new sources of clean and permanent energy instead!"
Europe has been in favour of renewable energy for a long time and was now embarking on a massive windfarm expansion, especially in the North Sea which would greatly reduce carbon emissions and provide valuable space for the expansion of the aquaculture industry. She also wanted to a see bigger push on wave and tide energy.
Ms Damanaki added: "Sure, huge investments will be needed to be able to bring offshore and marine energy onshore – to consumers; but those investments will be compensated by the savings on our fossil fuel bill, which is only bound to increase in the future; plus they will create high-quality jobs in our nations.
"Europe is already putting money into innovation. On top of what member states themselves do, the EU research programme spends approximately 360 million Euro per year on research on themes such as marine environment, maritime transport, marine energy, and fisheries. Europe has also promising sites for mining deep-sea minerals, but more research is clearly needed for complete protection of the ecosystems that could be affected."
She said the USA and the EU were neighbours; sharing a common maritime history and numberless economic links. It is only legitimate that the two should be sharing the work, the risks and, later, the rewards.
"To conclude oceans policy, green economy, sustainability and environmental governance are very high on Europe's political agenda."
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