The Gozo Confederation for Agriculture and Fisheries (GCAF) welcomes the growing recognition at European level that fisheries rules must be effective, sustainable and proportionate to the realities faced by fishing communities.
Recent developments in the European Parliament, including work led by Maltese MEP Thomas Bajada on the implementation of international fisheries management measures, have renewed the discussion on how European fisheries legislation can protect marine resources without placing unnecessary or disproportionate burdens on fishers.
For Gozo, this discussion is particularly important.
Gozo’s reality must be recognised
Fishing in Gozo is characterised largely by small-scale and family-based operations. These fishers operate from an island environment with limited economies of scale, higher operating costs and fewer opportunities to diversify their activities.
Rules designed for the wider European fishing industry therefore need to take account of the significant differences between large commercial operators and small-scale Mediterranean fishers.
GCAF believes that sustainability and the protection of fish stocks must remain at the heart of fisheries policy. However, environmental sustainability must go hand in hand with the economic and social sustainability of fishing communities.
A regulation that protects fish stocks but makes traditional small-scale fishing increasingly unviable cannot provide a sustainable long-term future for coastal and island communities.
Proportionate and practical regulation
GCAF supports a fisheries framework that combines strong conservation measures with practical implementation.
For small-scale fishers, this means avoiding unnecessary administrative burdens, ensuring that reporting and monitoring requirements are proportionate, and considering the real capacity of small operators to comply with increasingly complex regulatory requirements.
The European Parliament is currently considering several important fisheries files affecting conservation, fisheries management, monitoring and enforcement, including measures applying within the Mediterranean.
These discussions provide an opportunity to ensure that the particular characteristics of small-scale and island fisheries are properly reflected in European policymaking.
A level playing field
Fairness must also extend beyond regulation.
Gozitan and Maltese fishers operate within an extensive European regulatory framework while competing in a market where seafood can originate from countries operating under different standards and conditions.
European policy should therefore continue working towards a genuine level playing field, ensuring that sustainability requirements imposed on European fishers are accompanied by appropriate standards and controls for products entering the European market.
This is important both for the competitiveness of local fishers and for maintaining public confidence in sustainable fisheries.
The Gozo dimension
GCAF believes that Gozo’s circumstances deserve particular consideration in future fisheries policy.
Insularity, transport costs, a small domestic market, limited infrastructure and the small scale of individual fishing enterprises can combine to create disadvantages that are relatively minor individually but significant when taken together.
Future European and national fisheries measures should therefore recognise the cumulative impact of these constraints.
Policies supporting fleet modernisation, harbour and landing infrastructure, digitalisation, safety, energy efficiency, market access and generational renewal should complement fisheries conservation measures.
Keeping Gozo represented
GCAF will continue following developments in European fisheries policy and highlighting their implications for Gozo’s fishing community.
The objective should not be weaker fisheries management. It should be better fisheries management: environmentally responsible, scientifically sound, proportionate and capable of sustaining the communities whose livelihoods depend upon the sea.
For Gozo, protecting fisheries ultimately means protecting both the marine resource and the people who depend on it.