The Control Regulation, still subject to last-minute revisions, and the 2010 Baltic catch quotas will top the Fisheries agenda as EU ministers gather for their October 19-20 Council meeting in Luxembourg.
For the first time the ministers, and their advisors, carry with them background documents provided in a new project recently launched by FISH and Brussels-based Seas At Risk.
In the SARFISH project, a letter with a summary of our standpoints on issues up for decision, and a lengthier “annex” on each of those agenda points, will be sent to the ministers in preparation for each Council meeting that will deal with fisheries. The letter will also be sent, electronically, to their advisors, the Brussels Permanent Representations, top Commission officials, the European Parliament Fisheries Committee members, to involved NGO representatives and other interested parties.
The Luxembourg meeting will start Monday morning with the ministers discussing agriculture, notably the currently inflamed milk situation. Meanwhile, the Swedish Presidency will present a new revised version of the Control proposal, a Swedish government source says, “bilateral talks” on that paper then to follow outside the meeting. Hopefully, those talks, and possible changes in the paper, will then result in discussions in the full Council later in the day.
Obviously, the Control Regulation will be the hardest point to agree on, and the Baltic TACs will be dealt with when opportunities occur. No decision on the Control issue is expected until late Monday night, or Tuesday morning.
On the Control proposal, the FISH and Seas At Risk letter to the ministers observes “a general agreement that unreported catches and landings are a significant threat to the sustainability of EU fisheries resources”, adding that the current Commission plan, if adopted, would mean “a significant step in the right direction”.
The letter calls on the ministers to particularly support the Commission’s ideas on harmonisation of surveillance, inspections and sanctions, and on measures that enable the Commission to ensure that Member State really implement present and future rules.
The SARFISH letter strongly supports the much-discussed Article 95 in the proposal, which provides for the suspension of up to 18 months of EU fishing aid when a Member State fails to meet its obligations under the Regulations, and when there is a breach “so grievous as to seriously affect the conservation of marine resources”.
On the Baltic 2010 Total Allowable Catches (TACs), the Sarfish project notes that the situation for the Eastern cod stock has improved, after a management plan has been put in place and illegal fishing has been significantly reduced, and that high by-catch of juveniles and in some cases very high levels of discarding stand out as the main challenges now.
As for the pelagic stocks, the letter remarks that they are showing decline and calls for the Council to follow scientific advice and decide on “severe cuts”.
The letter urges the ministers to follow the management plan for the Baltic cod and adhere to the Commission proposal (a 15 percent TAC increase for the bigger Eastern stock, a 9 percent increase for the weaker Western stock), and to “consider further measures to deal with the increasing levels of by-catch and discards”. Decreasing the minimum landing size is “not a viable option”, SARFISH says, instead suggesting increased selectivity and landing quotas as ways of attacking the problem.