Acting against an ICES call for a total ban, the EU Council has allowed cod quotas for the North Sea to be raised by 30 per cent.
The decision, announced on the Swedish Ministry of Agriculture website, was made as the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Ministers were gathered in Brussels to decide next year’s Total Allowable Catches (TAC’s) and other levels for fishing activities regarding commercial stocks in most Union waters.
The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, referring to unnamed sources, reported that France and the United Kingdom had been the most forceful parties in playing down the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).
The Swedish Minister Eskil Erlandsson said in a statement that he was “not satisfied” with that decision, but added that an agreement between the Union and Norway earlier in the week included “strong measures” against discards, as well as intentions to develop more selective tools and possibilities to close fishing areas temporarily.
“Everybody should be aware that hadn’t Sweden taken an active part in influencing the decision, there was a great risk that the TAC’s had been increased even more, without the selective methods being enforced”, Mr. Erlandsson added.
Isabella Lövin, a journalist who had a big commercial and critical success with her book “Tyst hav” (Silent Sea) recently, and is a candidate for the EU Parliament for the Green Party, said the Council decision was “incredibly irresponsible”. To Dagens Nyheter she explained that the argument that more selective fishing methods could allow more liberal TAC’s was like “reaping the profit in advance”.
“Seeing what cod negotiations have looked like over the years, this is a classic”, she added.
The 30 per cent increase of TAC’s for the North Sea included the Skagerrak. As for the neighbouring Kattegat, the Swedish Minister said he was glad to see that the Council had decided to lower the 2009 TAC’s for the severely threatened cod stock by 25 per cent. Earlier in the fall, the Union adopted a management plan for the area, and the Swedish and Danish governments later decided jointly to enforce several no-fishing zones there.
Commenting on the decisions at the current Council meeting, the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) in Sweden welcomed the high-grading ban, but called the 30 per cent raise in North Sea cod TAC’s “sad”. “There is a risk that the positive effects will vanish”, Secretary General Lasse Gustavsson said in a statement.
At a press conference following the conclusion of the Council meeting, the last overall during the French Presidency, Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg chose to play down the Council’s rejection of many TAC reductions suggested by the ICES and the Commission, instead stressing the measures adopted to ban high-grading and develop more selective tools. “The Council reached unanimous decision to respect and follow all existing recovery plans”, he said, adding that “the Union has proved to be serious about our long-term commitments”.
As for spurdog and porbeagle – deep sea sharks – the Commission had proposed zero catches, prompting the marine conservation organization Oceana to note in a press statement that it was the first time it supported a Commission proposal on sharks and rays.
The Council now only accepted a 25 per cent TAC decrease for the porbeagle and 50 per cent for the spurdog, with maximum landing sizes of 110 and 100 centimetres, respectively. Commissioner Borg said it was a “first step”, and added that a total fishing ban for spurdog will be in force in 2010.