“Revealing the Harrowing Risks That Menaced Greece’s Legendary Warships”

“We are losing something which is very beautiful and which is unique, because the kaikia is handmade, unique and not mass produced,” Annika Barbarigos, Secretary General of the Traditional Boats Association of Greece, a non-profit aiming to preserve the traditional boats and boatyards, told BIRN.

Under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, and through the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance, Greece in 1993 had to start withdrawing many fishing vessels and cancel fishing licenses as a measure to reduce overfishing.

In 1999, a push was initiated to scrap fishing vessels that were 10 years old or more.

“The permanent cessation of fishing boats is a measure that could be accepted because the sea cannot withstand so much pressure, but you don’t have to break them and destroy them; it’s a shame, it’s a criminal act. Boats have a soul,” Ioannis Mpountoukos, president of Greece’s Union of Middle Range Fisheries Ship Owners, told BIRN.

“All these [rules] come from the EU – and nothing can be changed,” he added.

A report, Fishing boats on fire, published in 2009 by Greece’s Centre for Marine Research, HCMR, a government research organisation, stated that the EU policy had been wrongly designed.

“The applied restructuring policy was designed in a wrong way on the European as well as the national level. Fishermen were lured by the high compensation money associated with the destruction of their vessels,” the report said.

Subsidies encouraged destruction of boats

Boat scrapping Photo: Traditional Boat Association of Greece

Christos Stylianides, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy, revealed in December 2023 that “over 10,000 traditional fishing vessels were unfortunately destroyed in previous years.

“It is a shame that such wealth was lost. Many of these boats could be salvaged and converted at little cost into private or business pleasure boats. We have lost this wealth, so let us not lose even one more [boat],” he added.

The Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance financed the reduction of Greek fishing capacity in all categories in two periods, 1993-1999 and 2000-2006.

The fund provided resources either for destroying the vessels or for transferring them to a third country.

“With the above funding, and in particular with the weightier funding for dismantling rather than preserving vessels, it was possible for many fishermen to destroy their vessels and receive compensation that … in many cases exceeded the commercial value of the vessel,” the HCMR report noted.

In this way, many wooden boats were destroyed, especially older ones.

“If you don’t destroy the boat but change its usage, you receive less money. Someone might receive 100,000 euros to destroy their boat but only 10,000 euros to change its usage,” the president of the Traditional Boat Association of Greece, Nikos Kavallieros, told BIRN.

The scrapping policy continued under the European Fisheries Fund, EFF, 2007-2013. Fishers had three options – to scrap their vessels, or reassign them for the creation of artificial reefs, or for other usages, such as training, research, exhibitions, etc.

The Greek European Fisheries Fund Operational Programme 2007-2013 provided public aid for the permanent cessation of fishing, allowing for scrapping but also for reassignment of vessels to other purposes outside fishing.

The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF, between 2014 and 2020, allowed support for the permanent cessation of fishing without scrapping them in the case of traditional wooden vessels, provided that they assumed a land-based heritage function.

The most recent European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, EMFAF, for Greece for 2021-2027, allows for the permanent cessation of fishing activities again either by scrapping or decommissioning boats and refitting them for other activities.

While many in Greece argue that EU directives and funds over the years have effectively encouraged the destruction of an ancient maritime craft and tradition, the EU denies that it has actively forced anyone to destroy their boat.

“There is no provision in EU legislation that would oblige fishers to physically destroy their vessel,” a spokesperson for the European Commission told BIRN.

“Since 1999, a lot of different governments have passed, and they have all had the same policy. Who stopped the destruction? Nobody,” Kavallieros said.

“The state machine in Greece is stronger than the Prime Minister, and this machine is based on staff who are too bored to change things … It has nothing to do with any particular party. Right, left, centre, it’s all the same story,” added Barbarigos.

Compensation cash used to buy other vessels

The president of the Traditional Boat Association of Greece, Nikos Kavallieros (L), and Annika Barbarigos, Secretary General of the Association (R). Photo: BIRN

Professionals told BIRN that the money given to scrap boats was often used recklessly.

With the destruction of boats, fishing licenses should be revoked. But many Greek fishers have found ways to preserve them. “They take the money and use it to buy a plastic or iron boat that has been built in another country,” Kavallieros explained.

Fishers “took advantage of the [compensation] measure, destroyed their vessels and used the big compensation to buy other vessels which are ‘inactive’,” Mpountoukos told BIRN.

Many fishers renew their licenses every two years. There is no audit mechanism to check which ones are active or not.  “The system is rotten … it will never be changed,” he added.

This happens because the fishing license is often more valuable than the boat itself.

“If I want to buy a coastal fishing license, depending on the capacity of the boat, I can, for example, pay 10,000 to 50,000 euros for the license, which costs much more than the boat itself. If a boat costs 10,000 euros, including the license it can be worth 70,000 euros. It is the fishing license that has the value,” Mpountoukos said.

Old boatyards are vanishing

By destroying boats and not encouraging fishers and others to preserve them or build new ones, many professions, including boatyards, are at risk of disappearing.

“The people who built these boats are losing their profession. Even the boats that still exist often cannot be repaired because the craftsmen don’t exist anymore. They are dying out. It is important, culturally and economically, to keep them going,” said Barbarigos.

The few wooden boatyards left usually have limited work, because many maritime activities have been abandoned and others are now done differently, reported Boats and Boatbuilding in Modern Cultural Heritage, a collective initiative to preserve boat craftsmanship and stop the subsidized destruction of traditional fishing boats.

Even when remaining boatyards have the potential to build new boats, they are mainly confined to repairs and maintenance work because experienced craftsmen are scarce.

The platform has tracked all remaining Greek boatyards on a map.

Belatedly, there are signs of a rethink at government level.

In December, the Greek ministries of Shipping and Education announced joint plans to create a School of Ship Carpenters.

This will operate at the Museum of Shipbuilding and Maritime Arts of the Aegean, on Samos, an island in the northern Aegean, starting from the academic year 2024-2025.

“Saving traditional boats is intertwined with saving the shipbuilding art itself. … The wooden boat must remain alive, either for fishing, tourism, or commercial use. And the work of the shipwright must be treated as a living art,” Christos Stylianides concluded.