Following an application by Brittany PO Cobrenord, France’s Competition Authority (Authorité de la Concurrence) has published its opinion that the present system of collective quotas as used in France is inefficient and constitutes a threat to fair competition.
The Authority suggests the introduction of individual quotas allocated directly to producers.
At present French quotas are distributed by central government to some individual operators but mainly to POs which then distribute quotas to their members, according to their track records. Under this system, there is no monetary value attached to a quota and French fishermen’s organisations have fiercely resisted moves in the past to move to individual quotas.
The Authority has identified the risk of potential new entrants to the industry being discriminated against, as they have to become PO members to have access to a shared resource. POs are not obliged to accept new members and can refuse applications to join without explanation.
In addition, the Authority regards the distribution of quotas between PO members using fixed priority criteria as giving some operators an undue competitive advantage.
‘The criteria used to differentiate fishing vessels is, in fact, based on past activity, and does not account for objective considerations that are economically justified and achievable by every operator based on their individual merit,’ says a statement from the Competition Authority.
The Authority has stated that in the wake of the 2014 reforms, it invites public authorities to pursue a reform process to establish what it refers to as an efficient and coherent management system
‘In order to respond to environmental, economic and competitive concerns relating to this issue, the Autorité is in favour of the introduction of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) – which follow the example of the system used to manage the quotas for CO2 emissions – at least in regard to commercial fishing of overstretched species,’ the Authority says.
