Strong opposition from Spain in the EU Council forced a decision to reopen the Bay of Biscay anchovy fisheries “temporarily”.
The decision will take force on January 1. A Council press release after the prolonged deliberations said that the Bay of Biscay anchovy fisheries “will be subject to a later adjustment in accordance with a new scientific advise to be provided in Spring 2010”.
Spain will take over the EU Presidency from Sweden on that same date.
On an array of other TAC decisions, the presiding Swedish Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Eskil Erlandsson said that the Council had “by en large” followed scientific advice. As for cod in the Kattegat, scientists had recommended a closure, while the Council now accepted a catch quota of 379 tonnes, a decision the Swedish branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) described as “astonishingly bad and irresponsible”.
In a briefing document to the Ministers before the meeting, FISH and Seas At Risk had called for a closure of targeted cod fisheries west of Scotland, at the Faroe Plateau and the Faroe Bank and in the Irish Sea, as well.
The global Oceana campaign organisation later published a statement condemning the outcome of the meeting as a whole, and the decision to reopen the anchovy fisheries in particular.
“The agreements reached confirm this Council’s inability to protect and manage fishery resources”, Oceana said in a press release, adding that the anchovy reopening was “one of the Council’s most unfortunate and incomprehensible decisions”.
Oceana conceded however, that the organisation “is pleased to see (spurdog and porbeagle) finally getting the fisheries protection they so sorely need”.
TACs for the severely threatened shark species spurdog and porbeagle were set at zero this time, however with a 10 percent allowed bycatch for spurdog, closures the Council failed to agree on last year.
On the much-debated bluefin tuna issue, the Council stated that it is ”desirable” that the Union accedes to the Convention for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna to start that process.
Last month, The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) decided to reduce the annual Atlantic blue-fin tuna fishing, a decision described by environmentalists as “a sell-out” while they had called for a total fishing ban.
The EU Council now decided that the Commission and concerned member states would address the “socio-economic impact” of those reductions.
The day after the meeting, the Commission published a press release praising the outcome, declaring that “with this key building block in place, the European Union can continue pursuing its environmental, economic and social sustainability agenda for the benefit of its fishing and maritime industries, citizens and marine environment”.
“The agreement we have reached here today is indicative of what Europe can achieve when we cooperate together in good faith and work as a team – even on the most complex issues”, said Commissioner Joe Borg, who now sat in on his last Fisheries Council meeting. The nominee to replace him after his five-year mandate expires is Maria Damanaki, a Greek parliamentarian.