The EU Council early Wednesday morning reached “unanimous” agreement on 2011 TACs for most stocks under management, allowing much smaller reductions of cod quotas west of the British Isles than the Commission and scientific advice had suggested.
For the faltering cod stocks in the Kattegat, the Skagerrak and the North Sea, however, the Council’s 3 a.m. decision followed the proposal from the Commission. The Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for cod in the North Sea and the Skagerrak will be reduced by 20 percent as compared to 2010, and the TACs for the much threatened Kattegat stock will be halved.
For the two areas west of Scotland, the Council decided TAC reductions of 3 and 25 percent, respectively, while the Commission had proposed cuts by 15 and 50 percent, respectively.
For cod fisheries in the Irish Sea, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has for ten years adviced a total closure – the Council now raised the Commission’s bid for a 50 percent reduction to a mere 25 percent decrease from 2010.
In their customary letter to the ministers prior to the meeting, FISH and Seas At Risk had called for closures of cod fisheries in both the Irish Sea and the Kattegat.
At the early morning press conference following the conclusion of the meeting, Commissioner Maria Damanaki noted that “of course the Commission had a more ambitious proposal and I can say there is a lot of work we have to do”.
On a positive note, she held forth that “in cooperation with the Presidency we had figured out some red lines – and we kept them”.
“I can refer to three new elements – and we have achieved them, which is a very positive sign and something new in comparison with previous Council meetings:
- First, all decisions, on all stocks, mean progress toward our target, which is achieving Maximum Sustainable Yield by 2015. There were no exceptions.
- Second, there was full respect for all long-term management plans. There were no concessions, and this is also a new element.
- Third, all vulnerable stocks – especially sharks, all kind of sharks – and the stocks that need a lot of years to reproduce were very well protected. There were no sacrifices.”
Acknowledging that a lot of work remained to be done, the Commissioner particularly pointed to the need for better scientific data, on more stocks, admitting that ”we have a real problem here”.
To that aim, she called for better cooperation between “our scientists, the industry and member states.”
Damanaki also stressed that more long-term management plans (LTMPs) are needed, “in order to avoid all these detailed discussions that brought us here at three o’clock in the morning”. Referring to a conflict between the European Parliament and the other institutions over the MEPs’ new role under the Lisbon Treaty in setting up LTMPs, she said she hoped that the Parliament and the Council can work with the Commission to solve this “institutional problem we have now”, most recently concerning plans for horse mackerel and anchovy.
All in all, Damanaki, concluded, “I hope that next year our work will be easier if we are more successful with our ambitious proposal for a reform of the Common Fisheries Policy”.
Sweden’s Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Eskil Erlandsson praised the decisions on the Kattegat, the Skagerrak and the North Sea, affecting his constituency, as “responsible, reflecting the scientific advice”.
“We must be restrictive in order to have fish left to catch in the future”, he pointed out in a press statement, adding that a Swedish proposal to evaluate whether it would be possible to ban all trawl fisheries in the Kattegat during spawning has been adopted.
The decision drew less acclaim from environmentalists, however, with the Brussels Greenpeace office issuing a statement noting that “it’s obvious that the EU is unable to manage its fisheries under current rules”.
“Certain red lines set out by the Commission were kept, but a large number of quotas are still too high, especially for cod and tuna”, said Greenpeace EU oceans policy director Saskia Richartz.
“Reckless overfishing must be brought under control and fisheries policy reformed to allow fish stocks to recover. Ministers must agree to reduce the size and destructiveness of the fishing fleet and designate marine reserves”.
Before the meeting opened, Greenpeace staged a demonstration outside the entrance where they symbolically “decommissioned” – i.e. dismantled – a 25-metre trawler.
Similar concerns were voiced in a statement from Oceana, another global environmental NGO.
“The EU has lost another opportunity to firmly commit to stock recovery and the sustainable exploitation of fishery resources. Once again environmental concerns were eclipsed by political and economic interests,” said Ricardo Aguilar, Research Director for Oceana in Europe.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) initially struck a positive note by welcoming the Council’s readiness to follow LTMPs already in place, but called for a strong reform of the CFP, “as the present regulatory framework is failing to deliver more sustainable and profitable fisheries”.
For the OCEAN2012 Coalition, where FISH was one of five founding members in 2009, Uta Bellion observed that the Council had taken a step in the right direction regarding some stocks, but emphasised that it must in future set fishing limits “in line with scientific advice based on the precautionary and ecosystem-based approaches”. Uta Bellion is the director of the Pew Environment Group’s European Marine Programme and OCEAN2012 co-ordinator.
In Sweden, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) declared that “as usual” the cod stocks in the Kattegat, the Skagerrak and the Irish Sea “has ended up a loser”.