The EU Fisheries Ministers failed to reach any agreement on a new technical measures regulation at their November meeting, and a visibly subdued Swedish Minister Eskil Erlandsson, the present Council President, said “it is now for Spain to take over … this very pressing issue”.
Spain, the Union’s dominating fishing power, will lead the Council’s work from Jan.1.
The Swedish Presidency had presented a compromise proposal for a new comprehensive regulation that would replace several current sets of rules for the Atlantic and external waters, Erlandsson said, concluding that the new compromise still contained “stricter requirements which could not be accepted by enough many Member States”.
“A number of Member States deemed that further analysis was needed”, Erlandsson added. He did not specify.
The technical measures debate had “dominated the day” which also had agricultural matters, as well as some other fisheries items, on the agenda, Erlandsson told at a post-meeting press conference, adding that he was “disappointed” over the outcome. “Agreement on the proposal would have been an important step towards sustainable fisheries”, he declared.
“Discards have been a problem for a long time. I had hoped that we’d be able to agree on a proposal that would have meant reduced discards”.
“I now hope that the European Parliament will stand behind those measures that are needed”.
The Lisbon Treaty, that will tentatively be in force from Dec.1, will mean that the Parliament for the first time will have formal influence on fisheries issues.
Erlandsson said that Friday’s failure to reach agreement means that the current technical measures rules will be prolonged for the rest of 2009, for 2010 and the first half of 2011, “when a new decision must be made”.
A general high-grading ban was added to the present rules, however, meaning that all catches that are legal to land really have to be landed and counted off from the TAC.
The Council meeting also included agreement on the 2010 catch quotas for turbot and sprat in the Black Sea – the turbot TACs for Romanian and Bulgarian fishermen had dominated those discussions, Erlandsson said – reports from the Commission on the first round of the annual EU-Norway negotiations and an action plan to reduce unwanted by-catch of seabirds, and a lunch discussion on the 2012 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
Commissioner Joe Borg did not participate in the press conference after the meeting, and the Commission later Friday published a somewhat contradictory press release claiming that the Council did reach agreement on a “Presidency compromise proposal” regarding the technical measures rules. It went on to explain that this “agreement” meant that those technical measures already featured in the annex to the TAC regulation were ensured to “remain in place for 2010”.
Mr. Erlandsson’s contention – Presidency compromise rejected, no agreement – was supported both in the Council Press Release and on the Presidency web, and the Commission’s press release may possibly be interpreted as an attempt to point to the fact that, the Commission wishing to look at things from the bright side, at least the old technical measures rules were not done away with.