European aquaculture offers good quality products, respecting strict environmental health and

consumer protection standards. The excellent quality of EU seafood should constitute a major
competitive advantage for EU aquaculture. However, EU production is stagnating, in contrast
with strong growth in other regions of the world.
In 2010, the value of EU aquaculture production was 3.1 billion. 22% of the volume behind
came from freshwater aquaculture. When we look at our total seafood consumption, 25%
comes from EU fisheries, 10% from EU aquaculture and 65% from imports.
Each percentage point of current EU consumption produced internally through aquaculture
would help create between 3,000 and 4,000 full-time jobs. Aquaculture represents a relatively
small part of the EU economy but it has the potential to boost growth and jobs in EU coastal
and inland areas. The numbers can be larger depending on how we could see the implications
for processing jobs as well. For the Commission, aquaculture is one of the pillars of the EU's
Blue Growth Strategy.
***
The proposal for the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform and the accompanying financial
proposal (EMFF) both aim to promote sustainable aquaculture. A new mechanism that we
will introduce is the open method of coordination. This is a voluntary process for cooperation
based on Strategic Guidelines and multiannual national strategic plans identifying common
objectives and, where possible, indicators to measure progress towards these goals.
This meeting today is well timed. In the coming weeks the Commission will publish Strategic
Guidelines for the promotion of aquaculture, defining what we see as the main challenges and
priorities for the sector. The Guidelines will define general objectives and a strategic
framework that will help national and local authorities work together to help aquaculture
achieve its potential. Member States will be asked to prepare national aquaculture plans,
taking into consideration the specific starting conditions, challenges and potential in each
country. We will then help them coordinate their activities and exchange best practices and
know-how.
We have identified four key challenges for aquaculture in the Guidelines. We need to reduce
the administrative burden and uncertainties for aquaculture producers. We need to facilitate
access to space and water. We need to increase the sector's competitiveness and we need to
help ensuring a level playing field by exploiting EU aquaculture's competitive advantages.
These objectives are relevant for all types of aquaculture. Today, we can focus in particular
on how they affect EU freshwater aquaculture, and what role we see for the diversification of
aquaculture sites.
Diversification the theme you have chosen as the main focus for this meeting - represents a
key opportunity to improve the competitiveness of freshwater aquaculture, and more needs to
be done to realise this potential.

Many farms already exist where producers also diversify their activities with ecotourism,
angling and other recreational services. Business diversification can represent significant
opportunity for freshwater fish farmers, and we should help them to identify what is possible,
and then to implement the best ideas.
Another key dimension is that extensive and semi-intensive freshwater aquaculture offers
valuable landscape management and habitat conservation services that are beneficial for
society and for the environment. Existing pond-based farms represent a good example of how
an economic activity can meet the conservation needs of a habitat or species. We believe it is
important that these services are recognised, and that corresponding extra costs or loss of
income are adequately compensated.
The Commission's proposal for the new EMFF, which is now being negotiated with the
European Parliament and the Council, foresees incentives for both forms of diversification.
We propose that the fund should provide support for the development of complementary
activities as a new form of income, as well as for aquaculture providing services in terms of
environmental conservation and landscape management.
Across Europe, different economic activities compete for access to space and freshwater.
Integrated spatial planning and water basin management can help meet the needs of
aquaculture and minimise its impacts, and we encourage Member States to follow this
approach. The environmental services offered by pond-based aquaculture should be
adequately recognised in this context.
Two other objectives from our Guidelines are relevant to all kinds of aquaculture: reducing
administrative burdens and ensuring a level playing field.
We hear horror studies of aquaculture producers waiting many years to obtain a licence. 2-3
years is perceived as somehow "normal". In some Member States it can be even longer.
However, data reported in a European Parliament study suggest that the average licencing
time for aquaculture farms in Norway used to be 12 months and has been reduced to 6
months with the introduction of a single contact point. If we want EU aquaculture to be a
competitive and attractive sector, we need to improve this situation. We need to cut red tape
while maintaining the existing high level of environmental and consumer protection.
In our consultations, stakeholders also highlighted the need to ensure a level playing field.
European consumers are often willing to pay a premium for a product that is safe, high
quality and sustainable. Today, these characteristics of EU aquaculture products are often not
sufficiently known by consumers, and the general public is not always aware of the
contribution to biodiversity and land management. Better information including through
new labelling provisions as proposed in the Common Market Organisation Regulation can
help extract more value from our aquaculture products; and there also needs to be better
communication efforts to inform about the wider contribution of EU aquaculture to the
economy and society as a whole.

The fragmentation and limited representation of the EU aquaculture sector which is almost
exclusively composed of SMEs - have always represented a challenge, in particular for
traditional freshwater aquaculture. This issue is addressed in the proposed reform of the
Common Market Organisation through the establishment of Producers Organisations.
The proposed Aquaculture Advisory Council will also help: we expect it to become the
reference point for exchanging good practice and formulating recommendations that help EU
and national policy makers to better address the needs of the industry, consumers, and
citizens. We also hope that it will provide a useful platform for producers, consumers and
environmental NGOs to work together productively.
***
In essence, we want to do everything we can to create a more favourable environment for
freshwater aquaculture. The reformed CFP provides the legislative underpinning, and the next
generation of partnership contracts with the Member States that will be in place from 2014
should give a further targeted financial boost.
On the basis of our future work with the Member States around their new national plans, we
hope to help the relevant actors to identify concrete action already next year.
Our overall target is to bring about more sustainable growth and jobs in this sector, and as
soon as possible.

Distinguished Excellencies, Mayor of The Hague, distinguished delegates, Ladies and

Gentlemen, it is an honor for me to open the Global Oceans Action Summit for Food Security
and Blue Growth in the beautiful city of The Hague in The Netherlands.
"For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to
realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it." As Jacques-Yves Cousteau, one of the
most important leaders for the Oceans, said.
Do we dare dear Ladies and Gentlemen ? Do we dare to grow smarter today? Do we dare to
fish smarter today and do we dare to preserve our natural resources today, tomorrow and in
the future? Thats the 9 billion people question. Are we really willing to stop the moral outcry
that still almost 1 billion go hungry to bed every day? Are we really willing to stop the
overexploitation of our natural reources, especially fish stocks?
You, we, as global leaders, ocean practitioners, businesses, scientist, NGO's, civil society and
international organisations have to find answers to these the questions the coming days.
This summit is about sharing experiences, but more over demonstrating how combined action
in partnerships for healthier and productive oceans can drive sustainable growth and shared
prosperity while preserving our natural resources for future generations.

Face the facts

Let us be honest to each other, we know many of the answers to arrive at sustainable fisheries
and to arrive at worldwide food security.
Lets face the facts.
80% of all life on the planet is found in the oceans. The ocean provides a global life support
system that helps regulate climate and supplies half of the planets oxygen needed for one in
every two breaths that we take.
Of course food security can not be sustained without sustainable fisheries. Fish contributes 17
percent of the animal protein consumed by the worlds population and thus is a critical source
of food, with demand expected to double in the next twenty years.

Currently 3 billion people depend on fish for twenty percent of their average per capita intake
of animal protein.
About 660820 million livelihoods, or 1012 percent of the worlds population, are
dependent on the fisheries.
FAO reports show that 97 percent of the livelihoods that are directly dependent on fisheries
and aquaculture occur in developing countries, mostly via small-scale operations in Asia.
So healthy seas and oceans are key to rising to our challenge.
But three key threats to ocean health overfishing, habitat change and pollution affect our
ability to use the oceans to drive sustainable fisheries, strong economies and healthy
communities.
Actions to solve these threats have often been unsuccessful. Moreover, they have contributed
to the tensions between (i) growth and conservation, (ii) private sector interests and equitable
benefits for communities.

Wave for the World

Ladies and Gentlemen,
We need a new Wave For the world.
Fisheries and aquaculture generate considerable social and economic benefits for hundreds of
millions of people around the world. These activities have the potential to increase their
contribution to human well-being and growth. But these activities have also inevitable impact
on biodiversity and the environment.
In 1992 in Rio we agreed many goals such as to implement the Maximum Sustainable Yield
Approach for fisheries by 2015. We are not even close today.
The good news is we are making progress, bad news is if we dont step up our efforts there is
no fish left by 2030. The only way forward is bringing together stakeholders from across the
public-private-civil society spheres to co-design solutions that can achieve healthy oceans at
the speed and scale necessary to meet the challenges we face.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
How do we turn the tide.
First of all we should go back to the basis. We should learn from concrete success stories
where competing interests can be reconciled with a view to identifying actions, partnerships
and financing that can help scale up activities that ultimately result in shared prosperity today
and for future generations. Of course governments play a key role in addressing the
challenges, acting on their own and in concert with others. But fish has no boundaries.
Regional cooperation is becoming even more important nowadays. More emphasis should be

given through international cooperation and especially via for example Regional Fisheries
Management Organizations.
Furthermore partnerships agreements between EU and other countries should include a much
broader approach focusing not only on sustainable fisheries, but also local communities and
protected areas as well as habitats.
For me the crucial elements for sustainable fisheries are:

More selective fisheries methods;

Innovation and;

A discard ban, which is workable and implementable for our fishermen.

Innovations can really make a difference. In a tri-partite cooperation between the fishery
sector, Wageningen University and Research Center and the Netherlands government we
developed a much more selective fishery method, the pulskor. It is environmentally sound
because it doesn't disturb our seabeds and uses half of the fuel. We are more than willing to
share this innovative technique with you.

Sustainable relationship with our oceans

Delegates,
Local communities are the key to implement sustainable growth and fisheries, promote
changes across the entire production chain, and put fairness and the environment at its heart.
Strong momentum exists to reshape the context in which the fishery sector, independently of
its scale, currently operates in order to ensure sustainable growth with equitable benefits for
communities.
Last but not least we can significantly increase blue growth and global food fish production
from both sustainable aquaculture and sustainable fisheries by adopting best practices and
reducing environmental risk to stimulate investment.
We can enable the world's overfished stocks to be rebuilt and increase the annual net benefits
of capture fisheries by at least $20 billion, including through reducing subsidies that promote
overfishing and by encouraging responsible governance of tenure. We need these approaches
and together we need also:
halve the current rate of natural habitat loss and reducing habitat degradation and
fragmentation, by applying ecosystem-based approaches to management;
Increase marine managed and protected areas, and other effective area-based conservation
measures, to include at least 10% of coastal and marine areas;
Conserve and restore natural coastal habitats to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience to
climate change impacts.

We will therefore have to learn to build a more sustainable relationship with our oceans.
Because they are vital for food production, economic growth and food security. We have to
step up our efforts, that why the Netherlands, in cooperation with the World Bank, FAO,
Indonesia, Grenada, United States and Norway organized this Summit. Joint urgent action of
the global community is needed to address the threats facing our oceans. Local successful
innovations should be identified and scaled up in all regions. Our joint ambition should no
less than identifying these and developing a strategic roadmap for actions.
"It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin,
you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert." Jacques-Yves
Cousteau said.
I invite you all to join me in the new Wave for the World.
Thank you.