Falling short of reaching agreement on Commissioner Maria Damanaki’s mandate for the upcoming bluefin tuna negotiations, and setting a TAC for the huge sprat stock – the biggest stock of the Baltic – that made the Commissioner “unhappy and very disappointed”, the EU fisheries ministers picked the October Council meeting for showing some muscle in a growing tug-of-war where the Commissioner fights for sticking to scientific advice in the quest for sustainable fisheries.
The Commissioner has repeatedly made clear that she wants to see an end to “haggling” over TACs, and that in the future scientific advice – in the case of the Baltic Sea from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) – should be followed with no compromises.
Striking a positive note, the Flemish Fisheries minister Kris Peeters, who presided at the meeting, stressed that the long discussions on Baltic catch quotas for 2011 “for the first time resulted in a compromise where fishing mortality will not increase for any stock”.
As for the sprat, the Council decided on a 24 percent decrease, while the Commission had proposed down 30 percent, a thoroughly-haggled compromise Damanaki said she was both “unhappy” and “very disappointed” with, since “it does not refer to a reduced fishing mortality”.
“I wish to make it very clear”, she added, “that the Commission has a red line, we are not going against that red line, and our red line is that we need to decrease fishing mortality”.
The Council however followed the Commission proposal, in its turn following scientific advice, to stick for the management plans for the eastern and western Baltic cod stocks, allowing a 15 percent TAC increase for the eastern stock, and a 6 percent increase for the much smaller, but currently worse off, western stock.
For the western herring stock, the Council adopted the proposed 30 percent decrease, while it lowered the Commission’s ambitions for the Central herring stock and settled at a 15 reduction, while the Commission had suggested 28 percent.
The Council followed the Commission proposal for a 15 percent decrease in TACs for the salmon in the main basin of the Baltic Sea.
Commenting on the TAC decisions, WWF-Sweden fisheries political officer Jenny Fors said that development towards sustainable fish stocks in the Baltic “is moving in the right direction, but much too slow”. She added that the WWF had obviously preferred that the scientific advice had been followed all-out, “particularly for the salmon, the herring and the sprat stocks, who still lack management plans”.
The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) called the agreement a “disappointment”. Claiming that the decision to allow bigger quotas for herring and sprat than the scientists had recommended was “unacceptable” – particularly as seen in the context of the whole Baltic Sea ecosystem – SSNC Secretary-General Svante Axelsson pointed out that several other species, not the least cod, are dependent on sprat and herring for their survival. “If we want more cod, there has to be food for them”, he added.
The discussions on a Commission mandate for the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) resulted in – continued discussions.
The ICCAT meeting, to take place in Paris on 17-27 November, is expected to agree the future management of the severely threatened Atlantic bluefin tuna stock.
The Commission and some member states, including Sweden, the UK and Germany, on one side, and some other member states, including France, Italy and Greece on the other obviously failed to agree on guidelines, and Peeters said that the Commission will now present a proposal that will then be discussed in Council sub-assemblies.
“The Council and the Commission believe that the future agreement must be based on scientific opinion (…) and nothing else”, he added however, and Damanaki reiterated a general commitment to secure the sustainability of the bluefin tuna stock.
Environmental organisations immediately criticized the non-decision, the WWF issuing a statement stressing that “as the body representing all 27 EU Member States at ICCAT, the European Commission needs a strong and unambiguous negotiating mandate for the Paris meeting, which Commissioner Damanaki is trying to establish”.
“Mediterranean countries have refused fishing cuts which are indispensable for saving Atlantic bluefin tuna from recovery – and for safeguarding the future of their own millennial artisanal fishing sector,” said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.
The statement commended nations supporting Damanaki, “while deploring that France’s Minister, whose fleet is notorious for overfishing bluefin tuna, is not taking responsibility and is instead defending the status quo”.
Estonia and Latvia had prior to the meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the Commission’s way of handling the recent agreement on management measures at the annual meeting in Canada of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO).
Those two Baltic nations had called for a new agenda point, asking the Commission to “report” on how the agreement was reached that included a closure of the shrimp fishery off the Flemish Cap near Newfoundland where Estonian vessels are active. Some nations and sector representatives had complained that they felt not listened to.
The discussions at the Council meeting resulted in Peeters declaring at the press conference that “the Council and the Commission confirm the importance of the best possible cooperation between them when negotiating with third parties, and wish to maintain that good cooperation in the future”.