Publishing its proposal for next year’s Baltic TACs, the EU Commission followed ICES go-ahead to raise quotas for both cod stocks, while it even went under ICES recommendations for both the Central and the Bothnian Sea/Bothnian Bay herring.
The Commission proposal, however, suggested higher catch quotas than the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) had advised for both the huge sprat stock and for the main basin salmon.
In the case of the sprat stock, the Commission still proposed a 30 percent reduction from this year’s TAC.
“The return of the Baltic cod is good news”, Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki commented in a press release. “The long term management plan for cod which we put in place together with strong measures against misreporting has helped us to reduce fishing pressure to sustainable levels, which has given stocks the time to replenish and allows us to again increase the TACs for both the Eastern and Western stocks”.
“The situation of pelagic stocks – herring and sprat – is unfortunately the opposite”, she added, pointing out that “serious reductions in fishing pressure” were called for.
The Commissions now proposed a 30 percent reduction for the Western herring stock, and a 28 percent reduction for the Central stock.
In an analysis of the ICES advice published in May, FISH underlined that the insufficient data on the Bothnian Bay herring makes any advice on that stock impossible.
As for the salmon in the main basin, the Commission proposed a 15 percent reduction, to just over 250,000 individuals, while ICES had recommended a much more radical cut – to 120,000 fish. The Commission reasoned more in line with its communication drawing up the basic rules for the process. It may also be pointed out that far from the full TAC has been caught in later years.
In its review of the ICES advice, the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) , which is the Commission’s main scientific advisory body, had recommended that there should also be a 20 percent reduction in effort – e.g. days at sea – for those who fish the eastern Baltic cod stock. The Commission did not follow that recommendation from the STECF.