A new platform, working-name ”Baltfish”, is emerging in the EU decision-making process.
The conceived body, built around the Fisheries directors of those eight member states that surround the Baltic Sea, is budding from the EU Baltic Sea Strategy, launched as a pet project by the Swedish Presidency last fall.
The Fisheries directors, intended to constitute the platform’s steering group, have discussed the project under Swedish coordination, and the next step before a broader meeting in Stockholm in June with EU and member state officials as well as stakeholders, will be to sort out its role in relation to the EU Commission, Council and Parliament – a co-decision partner after the introduction of the Lisbon Treaty and other parties.
Those other parties include HELCOM – where also Russia is a member – and its Baltic Sea Action Plan, the Nordic Council of Ministers – where Norway and Iceland are members – and, not the least, stakeholders such as NGOs.
At a BS Strategy meeting in Helsinki in January it was clear, however, that the member states are calling for a regional platform of their own, since they are only members with observer status in the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council, an advisory body to the Commission.
The RACs are also heavily dominated by the sector, which holds two thirds of the seats.
The Strategy, launched by the Commission and the upcoming Swedish Presidency in June and adopted by the Council in October, contained 15 “Priority areas”, the ninth of whom being “To reinforce sustainability of agriculture, forestry and fisheries” under Finnish coordination.
Spread over those 15 priority areas were some 80 “Flagship projects”, with “Ensure sustainable fishing” as the sole fisheries project in the original version.
“Regionalisation of fisheries management in the Baltic Sea”, “Eradicating discards” and “Encourage sustainable aquaculture production methods” were later added, with Sweden, Denmark and Finland, respectively, as coordinating nations.
Sweden carries the overall responsibility for coordinating the fisheries part of Priority 9.
Presenting the “Baltfish” platform concept at a Priority 9 workshop in Helsinki, Robert Andrén of the Swedish Agriculture Ministry reminded that the BS Strategy “is owned” by all 27 member states, that the right to take initiatives lies with the Commission, and that the final decisions remains with the Council, now in co-decision with the Parliament, but that he hoped a more formalised Baltic cooperation would contribute to the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
The new Commissioner-designate Maria Damanaki also several times held forth the Baltic cooperation as a good example in her EP hearing earlier in the week.
Andrén added that the “Baltfish” forum could also act as “a platform for wider projects”.
A NGO representative pointed out that fisheries should not be treated out of context, and that the new forum should be seen, rather than as a fisheries platform, as a “marine council”. Andrén conceded the point, but added that he thought the process should be taken forward “stepwise”.
As for the three other fisheries flagship projects, little had yet proceeded much further than the evaluation stage. Presentations from the Helsinki workshop will be published on the Priority 9 website.