ROMANIA
Romania favours a unified approach by all riparian states that will secure the future of Black Sea stocks
Reliable data is critical to management Romania’s capture fisheries are mainly from freshwater. In the Black Sea catches are nominal with the exception, in the last few years, of veined rapa whelk, captures of which have caused marine capture production to almost equal that from freshwater. However, it is the aquaculture sector that is responsible for the bulk of domestic production. Strategies that will lead to a sustainable increase in output from these two sectors are the province of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, where Ioan Utiu, the State Secretary, has a key role to play. In the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) Romania has an allocation of EUR168m for the period 2014-2020. The fund has a strong focus on aquaculture sustainability, improved data collection, better market organisation and economic growth in fisheries-dependent communities. Given this, what are Romania’s overall strategic goals for the sector as reflected in the operational programme and what are Romanian priorities for which funding will be sought? To improve data generation, collection, and analysis during the 2014 – 2020 period Romania plans to use European support to focus on the following activities: – The growth of NAFA’s (National Agency for Fisheries and Aquaculture) administrative capacity through the creation of a specialised department for data collection, processing and data management and interconnecting the database with others (for example, GFCM) for the improvement of data transfer; – Financing activities of specialised scientific institutes, partners in implementing the national data collection program, particularly in fisheries, aquaculture and processing 38
Eurofish Magazine 6 / 2015
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Ioan Utiu, State Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
in order to improve the quality of the necessary management decisions; – Improved synthesis and analysis of fisheries, aquaculture and processing; – Implementation of the cooperation protocol with Bulgaria to carry out marine research in Community waters of the Black Sea to understand better, among other issues, the
influence of fishing on the aquatic environment; – Financing the participation of experts in working groups organised by scientific bodies in the Mediterranean and Black Sea and increasing the exchange of relevant information, including expanding cooperation with states in the Black Sea region that are neither EU nor GFCM members;
– Organising meetings between experts and fishermen’s organisations to increase awareness on the importance of data collection in order to strengthen fishing activities; – Conducting training courses for fishermen required for raising their level of qualification, adapting techniques for strengthening national fishing sector at the Black Sea. www.eurofishmagazine.com
02/12/15 10:56 PM