As agreed at its general assembly on 26 October 2024, AFPMAR addressed the DGAMPA (Direction Générale des Affaires Maritimes, de la Pêche et de l’Aquaculture) and the Ministère de la Transition Ecologique on the difficulties encountered by the French glass eel fishery in selling its glass eel production for the restocking market at justified prices.

We would point out that only the fishing sector has achieved the objectives set out in EU Regulation 1100/2007 concerning the restoration of the European eel. Despite this, the fishing industry is increasingly constrained, not only in the way it carries out its activity (licences, quotas, very narrow fishing periods not adapted to the random nature of its activity), but also economically by a restocking market that is virtually controlled by the farming sector. The result has been the gradual impoverishment of the small-scale estuarine and continental fishing sector, with average sales per business of €45,000 before the regulation was introduced, then €27,000 afterwards, and continuing to fall sharply in recent years as a result of a European market for the restocking of glass eels less and less dynamic.

AFPMAR, which supports the fishing industry as a whole, cannot accept this and is putting forward constructive proposals, as illustrated by the ‘Fish less and value more’ project, which takes account of existing regulations: Article 7 of EU Regulation 1100/2007 (conditions for modifying  the consumption/population allocation key) and authorisation for glass-eel transport outside the EU under the CITES regulation for the non-detrimental transport of the species in Asia.

We hope that the fisheries sector will not only be listened to, but also heard, in order to repair this injustice whereby the only anthropogenic factor that has achieved its objectives of minimising its ecological footprint is the only one to pay socially and economically for that mess.