Brussels, 20/11/2009 (Agence Europe) - At the request of France, Spain, Portugal and Greece, the Swedish presidency agreed on Friday the 20 November in Brussels to postpone the Fisheries Council's adoption of the regulation on the protection of fish stocks through technical measures. The dossier will therefore be re-examined next year according to co-decision procedure between the Council and European Parliament, in compliance with the Lisbon Treaty and when it comes into as from 1 December. Rolf Eriksson, the Secretary of State to the Swedish Department of Agriculture stated, "it is a great shame. A lot has been mentioned around the table about what problems the text could cause fishermen but no one spoke about fish and the problem of overfishing". German and British fisheries ministers would have indicated that they wished to continue negotiations.
Regulation 850/98 on certain technical measures for protecting stocks remain in force until the adoption of the new regulation. Only some provisions of detail contained in the regulation on fishing possibilities in 2009 are expected to be extended next year. France, Spain and Italy recently wrote Joe Borg, the European Commissioner for maritime affairs, asking him to postpone the adoption of the controversial regulation on technical measures. The presidents of the different regional advisory committees also requested this postponement. The proposal posed a lot of problems for many delegations, particularly the annex on net bands and the percentages of species required, which would have resulted in making nets larger and allowing certain species to escape. This would also create losses in products caught and a subsequent loss of income. The annex on minimum landing sizes also caused quite a lot of protest, particularly from Spain (which wanted 10cm on the Gulf of Cadiz anchovies), Portugal, United Kingdom and Ireland (regionalisation of the minimum size for lobster). Rules from committee proceedings were also criticised (the majority of countries want the regulation committee to take decisions on certain technical measures and not for the management committee to do so).
Alain Cadec (EPP, France) that he wanted the is technical measures to be studied at the beginning of 2010 by the Parliament. Cadec stated, "we are opposed to an amendment of the current regulation on technical measures. We want a territorial approaching these measures to take into account regional specificities". (L.C.)