Cyprus can be an example in terms of aquaculture, which should be developed throughout the EU, Cypriot Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans Costas Kadis said on Sunday.
Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency about his plans for the role, Kadis referred to the ongoing evaluation of the Common Fisheries Policy and the effort to ensure competitiveness for European fisheries, adding that proposals to update it will be submitted by the end of the year.
He also said that 70 per cent of the fish consumed in the EU comes from imports.
The Commission, he said, aims to support small-scale fisheries, which would benefit Cyprus, but also to support aquaculture and fish farming, where Cyprus is an “excellent example of its steady growth and development”.
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), he said, is “one of only five EU policies for which the European Commission has exclusive competence and not the member states”, while it has been 11 years since it was last revised.
“Certainly, important new challenges have emerged, which I am sure will be highlighted through the evaluation that is currently underway,” he said.
The fisheries sector “is facing unfair competition from third countries,” he said and his aim is to ensure that “things work in a rational way and that our fishermen and aquaculture farmers are competing on an equal footing with their third-country counterparts,” he said.
Fishermen in Cyprus too are facing unfair competition, he added. “Our fishermen have strongly pointed out that they cannot fish in 60 per cent of the coastal areas of Cyprus”.
He estimated that EU policies will also positively affect Cyprus as the Commission’s priorities include “supporting small-scale fisheries”, which constitute Cyprus’ fishing industry “almost in its entirety”.
He said he would work with other commissioners so that “we can support areas such as coastal areas, island regions, which of course includes Cyprus”.
Aquaculture, he said, contributes only 10 per cent of fish stocks. “There is huge potential in the sector and we will invest in it.
“In Cyprus we have the excellent example of a steady increase in aquaculture, with very high-quality products”. Cyprus, he added, can be used as a successful example.
“Globally aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector, while in the European Union it is stuck at 10 per cent,” he said noted, partly due to “the public’s scepticism about aquaculture products.
“I think that in Cyprus we have overcome this also because of the high quality of the products,” Kadis said. “One of the first actions we will promote in 2025 is a pan-European campaign on the importance and value and quality of aquaculture products in Europe.”
Kadis also outlined his responsibilities regarding EU ocean policy. “The oceans, the seas in general, have been increasing in importance in the global political arena in recent years, and this has to do with the role of the oceans as a source of food, as a place for the movement of goods, ports, shipyards, sites for the installation of renewable energy infrastructure, countries linked to tourism and services.”
Adding that competition between all these industries is increasing, he said that “we need to see how these activities can work in harmony and without negative consequences for the environment because if the oceans are degraded, then many of these activities will collapse”.
The main objective of the Commission is to bring all these policies under the same umbrella through the Ocean Pact, which should be announced by the summer.
“It will be a coherent framework through which the marine environment can be managed holistically,” he said.
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