Yesterday afternoon, after meeting an impasse concerning the proposed Baltic multiannual plan, the delegation from Parliament, led by Rapporteur Mr. Jarosław Wałęsa walked out of trilogue negotiations with Council and the Commission. Council has thus far failed to meet the objectives of the reformed Common Fisheries Policy, in particular those which prevent overfishing.
In effect Council is endorsing the overfishing of Europe’s fisheries, and Parliament has had enough. The key issue is how to limit fishing effort to protect the long-term viability of fished populations, fishing communities, and profitability in the fisheries. Parliament agreed on a ceiling for fishing effort, the reference point FMSY. Fishing below FMSY is the only way to achieve the population goals expressed in Article 2.2 of the recently reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), yet Council does not accept this clearly stated upper limit.
Article 2.2 states:
“The CFP shall apply the precautionary approach to fisheries management, and shall aim to ensure that exploitation of living marine biological resources restores and maintains populations of harvested species above levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yield.” (CFP 1380/2013)
Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), at its core, is a fisheries exploitation concept which seeks the largest long-term stable catch possible. Global use and interpretation of the MSY approach has evolved in complexity since the early 20th century but the concept remains the same; An overfished population is unable to support MSY.
From an abundant fish population exhibiting a healthy age and size distribution in a stable environment, fisheries managed with precaution in mind can sustain a maximum stable and predictable catch. This is the foundation of the MSY approach which Europe adopted in 2013 in the reformed CFP. In these negotiations Council so far has not supported the MSY approach adopted in the 2013 CFP reform, in effect permitting continued overfishing.
We applaud Parliament for their dedication to implement this crucial component of the reformed CFP. We strongly encourage Council to recognize the reformed CFP they supported only a few years ago and agree to end overfishing by keeping fishing effort below FMSY.