The Agreement with the European Union according to Ordiales

At the recent meeting held in Puerto Madryn by the Argentine Industrial Union (UIA) governing body, Mario Ordiales, Chairman of the Patagonian Argentine Chamber of Fishing Industries (CAPIP) and of Harengus firm, was in charge of  delivering a speech in which he analyzed Argentine fishing present situation.

When considering the overcapitalization history that almost leads to the hake fishery collapse, Ordiales stated that “there was a slow but constant increase in the number of freezer vessels fishing hake in the southernmost biomass of this variety of fish”. He also asserted that the considerable, perhaps excessive, increase in the size of the freezer fishing fleet starts as from 1994 onwards, as a result of the fisheries agreement signed between Argentina and Spain according to which Argentina handed 150,000 tons of hake –which the country did not have- over to those Spanish vessels that, based on this agreement, flew the Argentine flag. The theoretical condition of such a “pour la galerie” agreement was “not to increase the fishing effort”. This basic theoretical condition was not fulfilled in practice and led to such overinvestment and overfishing that hake was on the verge of exhaustion.

Although it lacks precision –the agreement was signed with the European Union, the allotted tons were 120,000, and the captures of the freezer fleet increased fivefold between 1988 and 1994- the description above is highly significant when the person performing those actions is the legal representative of the companies that benefited from that process.

However, the aftertaste of the investments made and the possibility of their practical realization is bitter. Ordiales puts the blame for this on “officials and businessmen from the north and the south” equally, although he separates from the conclusions following from his speech when he complains that the emergency measures adopted at one time represented important restrictions for freezer vessels. Moreover, he considers those measures to be “discriminatory”. (See Justice Validates Emergency Fishing System)

CAPIP Chairman states that the validity of the 189/99 Decree declaring hake fisheries state of emergency “cannot be explained”. He also clarifies: “I believe that the Decree is inexplicably in force because, at present, signs of hake recovery are evident, and the total allowable catch is of  300,000 tons, which means 80,000 more tons than Namibia’s, main Argentina’s competitor in the world markets”. This is not only a really weak argument but also one tinged with profit urgencies. (See “Namibia and Argentina”, and “Recovery Just Begins”.)

Mario Ordiales does not explain how this incipient recovery process, inseparably linked to those restrictions, was achieved, even though companies such as the ones he presides over infringed those restrictions, protected by extremely doubtful legal cautionary measures. (See Justice Validates Emergency Fishing)

 On the other hand, it is not possible to justify the delay in the quota allocation process with the emergency regulations either since, although all other species are not in a state of emergency, there was no advancement regarding them. Likewise, the hake quota process could have advanced in theory while the recovery process went on; however, this did not happen either. In this sincerity process that seems to be making its way, it might be appropriate to examine the several and important inherent difficulties present in the application of the system, just as CeDePesca has been doing for the past five years.

The pearl of the speech came when the individual transferable quota system was labeled as “progressive and revolutionary”. Curious language articulated with the millennial purpose of adapting to the present time in politics. Besides, even more curious is the fact of using this qualifier to refer to a system which is the most concerted attempt to move the concepts of  open market and extreme liberalization towards fisheries management, a sign of the times in which it was adopted, under Carlos Menem’s government.

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