Who knows if Pietro Ricci, last Saturday, looking at the sea, sang like Equipe 84: «Today, September 29th, sitting in that cafe, I wasn’t thinking about you». It is very hard to turn your back on the Adriatic for those who, together with Carlo Di Domenico, got the fishermen’s cooperative of San Benedetto del Tronto (AP) back on its feet to carry on a profession that is handed down from father to son, which enters into the blood like the brackish, which leads to chasing the horizon behind the fish routes. But now? Europe, all rules, green and distinctive, is leading them to forget the sea, which for them, as for boats all over Italy – eight thousand kilometers of coastline where there was no rock without a gozzo, a fishing vessel moored – means denying oneself themselves. Since September 30th the Adriatic fleets have resumed their catches: the “biological shutdown” which forced them to remain at the dock for six weeks has ended. But the fishermen will also have to take on board “Big Brother” who will monitor their every movement.
In fact, the new regulation, which is a mess of bureaucracy, came into force last Monday for anyone trying to make a living fishing. About sixty miles further north of San Benedetto del Tronto, in Civitanova Marche, there is another decent fleet of boats, including boats that “go by clams”, but the sea is now too warm, has reduced the prey and then there is the blue crab which, fortunately, has the same adaptation problems. There the sea workers are on a war footing and are threatening: with these rules we cannot set sail. From Trani to Chioggia they are thinking about giving up: little is earned, a lot is spent on diesel and now Europe has arrived to make it almost impossible to operate, while naval teams flying foreign flags plow the Mediterranean without restraint or rules, and sell the catch below cost. But what is new, or rather old? Europe’s old habit of regulating everything is old. Again, now you have to record what you catch with each descent. You can see that the Fisheries Commissioner comes from Lithuania: 24 kilometers of free coast on the Baltic, plus eighty in the lagoon. Virginijus Sinkevicius must never have been on a fishing boat, otherwise he would know that in the south-west it is complicated to stand up and retrieve hundreds of meters of net that weighs a few tons – both trawl and seine – and it is as tiring as it is dangerous.
Well, while trying to get by, you have to count the prey one by one, catalog them according to the different species, weigh them and record them. And this at every descent: on average every hour. In a day of fishing, about ten sets are made, but with the new European regulation you have to stop every time, gather the different fish and weigh them. All this under the watchful eye of a camera that must be installed on board and which records everything. Hopefully it is without audio otherwise in addition to the “absolution” of the Eurobureaucrats, that of the parish priest is needed. The penalties for those who do not fill in the catch register or obscure “Big Brother” are very high fines and can even lead to the arrest of the boat and the confiscation of the catch. So, at least on the Adriatic, they decided to rebel. Already last spring there was a substantial mobilization of fishermen organized by Coldiretti, with president Ettore Prandini determined to ask Europe for a change of pace. Which evidently didn’t happen even though the Minister for Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Francesco Lollobrigida made a strong commitment. To the point of filing an appeal with the European Court of Justice against the new regulation.
But the sentence is yet to come, while the fines are ready to go. Opposing the regulation, Lollobrigida said: «Italy is the nation that has been most penalized by EU regulations in the fishing sector. Our fishermen have been the most affected, as demonstrated by the 40 percent decline in fishing in the last decade alone.” By signing the various decrees for the fishing ban – on the Tyrrhenian Sea they last four weeks, for Sicily there was for the first time the possibility of modulating the calendar – he reiterated Italy’s opposition and put the G7 at the center of Syracuse also addresses the issue of Mediterranean agreements on this sea activity. Now that the rules are coming into force, however, there is a risk that a movement similar to that of the tractors that besieged Brussels will arise on the docks. The reasons, as always, lie in the numbers.
The Union has decided to reduce fishing effort by 40 percent by 2026, which means losing around three thousand boats in Italy. However, the latest report from the food organization FAO certifies: «Although overfishing remains a concern, there is a 15 percent decline in 2023. There is, therefore, an improvement consistent with a continuous reduction in fishing pressure fisheries, which have declined by 31 percent since 2012. Wild capture fisheries and aquaculture in marine and brackish waters in the Mediterranean together produced nearly two million tonnes of seafood in 2021, SoMFi 2023 data shows. From an economic point of view, they have played an equally important role, generating revenues of over 20 billion dollars and supporting 700 thousand jobs along the value chain.” The problem is that Italians earn less and less: capture fishing has been generating a billion euros for years. And there is a reason: there is unfair competition from the Tunisian, Algerian, Libyan, Turkish fleets and also from the Chinese and Japanese ships that come to fish in the international waters of the Mediterranean. Even with Croatia or Slovenia – not to mention Albania and Montenegro which do not respect EU rules – it is difficult to sign agreements on the limitation of catches, in particular of anchovies, sardines and mackerel which make up about half of the catch. For sole and hake, for example, there is no longer any alarm. Despite this, Brussels points the finger at our boats even if – the FAO always notes – «small vessels represent the vast majority of the fishing fleet and provide more than half of the total employment, although they only reach about 15 percent of catches”. It is also for this reason that Italy depends 80 percent on imported fish, as we are also heavy consumers: we eat around 30 kilos each per year, eight more than the European average. Aquaculture, which has almost doubled in ten years, is only able to meet part of the demand and the qualitative differences in the Mediterranean are very notable.
Thus our demand is satisfied by imports which partly favor other European states, but largely open the doors to fish of dubious quality and unfair competition. In a report, the fishing management center of Mazara del Vallo writes: «One of the major critical issues today is that the EU has placed ecological sustainability at the center of its policies while for Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the priorities are different: work . We have been asking for information on the fishing effort of those fleets for years without success. We know that in 2021 the Tunisian fleet surpassed the Italian one in catching cod. Sooner or later the Tunisians will surpass the Italians also in terms of red shrimp fishing.” Then there are the multinationals that bring pangasius to Italy, the fish from Chinese rivers, the underpaid African fish, the Asian fish subjected to poor health checks. One of the major operators, also accredited by the EU, is the Chinese CNFC Overseas. With a fleet of 250 vessels, six processing plants, it handles 61 million tonnes of fish per year. Most of the squid and fish fillets that we find at discount have the Cnfc brand. Europe is fine: if not the sea, at least the bureaucracy is safe.
