At a time when the European Fisheries Commission tells us that all Member States are treated under a ‘level playing field’ regime, this is clearly not the case and it has become abundantly clear that certain powers within Europe are influencing and manipulating the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy system to their own benefit and to the crippling cost of others.
Regular readers of IFSA articles will be aware of many previous references (by myself and others in the industry) as to how the Netherlands can be the regular beneficiaries of EU Commission ‘deals’ while countries such as Ireland are often the ones to foot the bill.
The following article, published under the headline banner ‘Follow the money’, from last December by pulitizercentre.org reports “How One Dutch Company Is Slowly Taking Over Much of Europe’s Fishing Sector” and highlights the exact state of affairs within EU fisheries management and how a single company in the Netherlands, Parlevliet & Van der Plas, can rise within a few decades to now have an annual revenue of 1.5 billion euros, employ over 8,000 people, have 170 subsidiaries in 19 countries including Germany, UK, Lithuania, France, Spain, Portugal and Poland whilst operating over 50 fishing vessels flagged in ten different countries.
Whilst it is widely known that the EU Commission are actively perusing a deal to allow Icelandic vessels access to Irish waters to fish for blue whiting while there is no visible benefit to Ireland in return, it is also worth noting that the Parlevliet company are business partners with major Icelandic fishing company Samherji who, amongst their fleet of different types of vessels, own at least one 72m pelagic trawler.
‘Level playing field’? - follow the money indeed…..
See the full article here: