Few political decisions beside the usual TAC and quota haggling are foreseen in the work programme of the Belgian EU Presidency for the second half of 2010.
Belgium took over the Presidency from Spain on 1 July, to pass on the torch to Hungary on 1 January next year. Belgium still has a caretaker government after the former Prime Minister’s resignation last spring and the following elections in June, resulting in an even wider rift between the nation’s Flemish and French-speaking populations. Still, Belgium’s long and thorough experience of EU work, and the fact that the Union’s President Herman Van Rompuy is a former Belgian PM and as thoroughly experienced in working within that complicated political system, make few experts expect any glitches in the Presidency work.
The work programme points out that no proposals from the Commission concerning the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy are scheduled until next spring; a decision is then expected in 2012, for a new CFP to take effect on 1 Jan. 2013.
On that note, however, the Belgian Presidency will arrange a symposium to discuss improved cooperation between scientists and fishermen, “in a joint quest for sustainable fisheries”. That symposium, on 9-10 November, will be a preamble to the Commission’s big 16 November Conference in Brussels on CFP reform.
As for the monthly Council meetings, those in October, November and December will have fisheries issues on the agenda; mainly TAC decisions as follows:
- TACs and quotas for the Baltic Sea: proposal mid-September, decision at the October Council.
- TACs and quotas for deep-sea stocks in 2011 and 2012: proposal end of September, decision at the November Council.
- TACs and quotas for the Black Sea: proposal in November, decision at the December Council.
- General TAC and quota Regulation: proposal end of October, decision at the December Council.
As for the technical measures rules, now under a transitional regulation since the Council failed to adopt the Commission’s proposal in November last year, no discussions will be held in the Council this autumn, but the Presidency says it will “cooperate constructively” with the European Parliament, in order to hand over a “well advanced” dossier to the Hungarian Presidency.
The transitional regulation is valid until 30 June next year, but since it has meanwhile been decided to include the new technical measures in the general CFP reform work, new rules are not ready, and the time period will have to be extended, the work programme says.
The Presidency said that it will “continue ongoing work” on long-term management plans for the Atlantic horse mackerel and the Bay of Biscay anchovy.