Brussels, 29/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The dispute between Parliament and Council over the legal basis for multiannual management plans for certain fish stocks must not poison talks on reform of common fisheries policy (CFP). European fisheries ministers, meeting on Monday 28 January, were well aware of this. During their working lunch, a broad agreement took shape around the need to seek a solution with Parliament on the question of multiannual plans, but that solution must be in line with the Treaty of Lisbon, which confers upon the Council alone the responsibility for fixing measures relating to fishing possibilities, as underlined by the Council legal service in the opinion that it issued last Friday.
Several member states pointed out during lunch that it was not legally possible to include harvest control rules in the plans adopted in co-decision, but that it was possible to include in those plans: management objectives, detailed rules on implementation of the gradual ban on discards, and technical and control measures adapted to each fishery - rather like the regulation on measures for banning discards in the Skagerrak (see EUROPE 10773). (LC/transl.jl)