The EU Council meeting on Monday, May 25, will provide Union ministers with a first opportunity to dig deeper into the Green Paper on CFP reform introduced a month ago.
Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg will also make a statement to the Council on the controversial discards issue. This practice is “no longer acceptable” and the need to eliminate it is “undisputed”, the Commission said in a pre-meeting statement.
In their first reaction at the April Council meeting as the Commission presented its Green Paper on the upcoming 2012 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, Member States agreed there was a need for substantial reform to improve and simplify the management and decision-making process. Such issues as overcapacity, discards, quota management, the support for coastal fisheries and the revision of funding rules, were especially mentioned.
The Ministers are now expected to indicate ways to move forward, and add possible aspects that have been neglected but should still be included into the reform
As for discards, The Commission published a communication addressing the problem as early as 2007, but finds progress too slow. The Commission says it will now address discards “energetically” and will suggest a series of “specific measures” that should be implemented over the coming years.