Brussels, 29/08/2012 (Agence Europe) - The EU and Norway are gradually to phase out the practice of discarding fish in the waters of the Skagerrak, where Danish, Swedish, German, Dutch and Belgian vessels, in particular, carry out fishing activity.
According to a new proposal by the European Commission unveiled on Wednesday 29 August, the EU and Norway are to harmonise technical and control measures for fisheries in the Skagerrak to ensure long-term sustainability of fish stocks.
The proposal provides for the obligation to land all catches of certain fish species in order to put an end to the practice of discarding. The new rules spell out how the ban will work in practice, specifying for instance that undersized fish may not be used for human consumption, except for charitable purposes. The obligation to land all catches will enter into force in two stages: some species (cod, haddock, pelagic species like herring and mackerel) will be covered by the anti-discarding rule on 1 January 2013. The rule will apply to the rest (mainly flat fish and species like sand eel or Norway pout) on 1 January 2015. New technical measures agreed with Norway are also being introduced.
This initiative was promoted by the revocation of an agreement dating back to 1966, which allowed Swedish, Danish and Norwegian vessels to fish up to 4 nautical miles from each other's coasts whilst remaining under flag-state jurisdiction. With the 1966 agreement revoked, the vessels will have to comply with coastal state jurisdiction, which is why EU and Norwegian rules must be harmonised. Though the only EU countries that can fish within 4 miles of the Norwegian coast are Denmark and Sweden, the new measures will apply to all EU member states having fishing rights in the Skagerrak (i.e. also vessels from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands). (LC/transl.jl)