Yesterday the Faro de Vigo editorial headlines that “Europe must rectify its unjustified veto on bottom fishing”, and this is how it should be, because the implementation of its Execution Act of the General Directorate of Fisheries of the European Commission it is a trope. The issue is splendidly exposed in said Editorial, which of course I support, but the background of this matter is not taken into account, which is in the ins and outs of interests that move “like a fish in water” through the ponds of Brussels, and the remoras (Lobbyists) that are attached to the big fish (senior officials) on which the decisions made about the oceans and seas depend.
Of course, Brussels gives us a hard time with this veto, but behind this decision there are other culprits: I am referring to those who benefit from this measure that has been provoked by them through their lobbies: They are the shipowners from countries like Holland, Denmark, Norway and Ireland, and it is its processing industry. The Spanish fish and shellfish market is the largest in Europe, and is mostly self-supplied by the extraction of the Spanish fleet. It is a market in which everyone wants to be present, and for this we have to carve out a niche by elbowing Spanish companies out of our market. This is the end of the measure.
Why does this happen to us over and over again?
Because the Spanish State does not have the level of presence and pressure that is needed to defend the interests of our country in International Institutions, and especially in Brussels, and even more especially in certain sectors, such as primary, because others such as energy Well they are represented, but they are the exception. I explain:
Countless companies from different sectors, and especially the primary sector, I repeat, defend their interests directly in Brussels by hiring expensive but efficient law firms dedicated to Lobbying, which manage a valuable agenda of contacts that are what make possible that thanks to their activity, the course of policies is changed, always to favor the interests of the companies they defend to the detriment of others whom they intentionally seek to harm in order to throw them out of the market.
Neither Spanish companies, with some exceptions of large companies, invest in lobbying, nor does the State know how to fight against these practices in order to counteract their ability to influence that harms our interests.
When this happens, what happens, it happens. Lobbyists win, and once again a decision from Brussels makes there a winner and a loser.
Of course, by ejecting the fleets from our waters, one of the winners is the schools of fish, but these are not clients of the Lobbies, the winner is the country that wants to enter our market with its products from its fisheries, and the loser is Spain and Portugal, and especially the Galician fleet, the most important and the one that will suffer the most.
Let’s see if we learn the lesson once and for all, and do what we have to do to win the battles in Brussels: do the same as the countries that win this type of battle. Copy their method, and if possible improve it. Only in this way will we win when we jump into the ring in Brussels to hit each other, even if only for self-defens.
Puede leer el artículo en español en El Economicista.
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