News
June 7, 2013
David Miliband and the Global Ocean Commission seek to push marine issues up the political ladder
In his new role as head of the Global Ocean Commission (GOC), former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband espoused the need “to sound the alarm about the state of the oceans” and to bridge the gap between expertise in ocean management and politics in a speech delivered to the US-European Sustainable Oceans Summit last week in Portugal.
June 3, 2013
Commission intentions for 2014 TACs made clear
On 30 May, the Commission published its annual communication on fishing opportunities. Its initial section on status of stocks gives quite a mixed picture, but shows some improvements in the number of stocks covered by scientific assessments and the number of stocks managed at or below FMSY.
May 31, 2013
ICES advice for Baltic quotas in 2014
Today, ICES’ Advisory Committee (ACOM) published their advice regarding the exploitation of the Baltic Sea fish stocks for 2014. It shows that four Baltic stocks are now fished at or over Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), whereas three are still considered overfished. Of the Baltic stocks, seven are also considered data poor, resulting in higher uncertainties in the advice.
May 30, 2013
Historic agreement on the future of Europe’s fisheries reached
In the early hours this morning, the Council and the European Parliament came to a hard-fought agreement on the basics for the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), after months of trilogue negotiations.
May 22, 2013
Boulders sunk in Polish waters to combat illegal and unregulated fishing
Today, Greenpeace organised the deposit of five large stone boulders on the sea floor close to Kolobrzeg in order to disrupt illegal trawling activities. In 2009 they performed a similar action in the Kattegat between Sweden and Denmark.
May 17, 2013
Analysis from the May Council on the CFP reform
The message from Council is clear: this is their final offer under the Irish Presidency. However, on the key issues Member States have made such minor compromises that rapporteur Ulrike Rodust (S&D, DE), who said “Ministers have made certain concessions but I would have liked to see a more courageous decision”, finds herself in a dilemma ahead of the final trilogue meeting on 28 and 29 May.
May 14, 2013
Council prepares for a long evening – will Ministers get lost at sea or chart the course for fish stock recovery?
This evening, the Council is expected to conclude their discussions on the basic Regulation of the CFP reform and provide the Irish Presidency with a revised negotiating mandate for the upcoming trilogue meetings. Unless Member States compromise amongst themselves to move away from the General Approach, negotiations with the European Parliament will break down causing further delays to the already much drawn out CFP reform.
May 13, 2013
Council in make-or-break talks to conclude the CFP reform
On 13 and 14 May, the crucial Council meeting to decide on their final negotiating position on the basic Regulation takes place. In order to bridge the divide between the European institutions, rapporteur from the Parliament, Ulrike Rodust (S&D, DE), wrote to Ministers last week informing them she was willing to make sacrifices “in order to achieve a compromise”.
May 7, 2013
All aboard for sustainable fishing
Invite your Minister to get on board the good ship sustainable fishing. This website encourages EU citizens to call on their representatives to pass laws which let fish stocks recover, supports sustainable fishing and ends harmful subsidies.
April 26, 2013
CFP reform timeline gets squeezed as trilogue makes slow progress
As the much-delayed reform of the EU Common Fisheries Policy draws toward its conclusion, a last-minute deal between the European Parliament and Council may have to be brokered due to the lack of progress thus far on key issues.