Brussels, 26/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 25 February, the Council of Ministers of the EU adopted a regulation extending and updating the technical fishing measures, ahead of the entry into force of the new reform of the common fisheries policy (CFP). The text had been agreed with the Parliament at first reading.
The new provisions are designed, amongst other things, to better protect juveniles (young fish) from the effects of fishing activities. These new proposals include: - minimum landing sizes and a minimum net mesh size for turbot fishing in the Black Sea; - keeping in place the prohibition on highgrading catch in all of the ICES areas in order to reduce discards of species under quotas; - a ban on releasing fish of certain species or allowing them to escape before the net has been completely taken on board (and the obligation to change fishing site if 10% of the catch consists of fish under the required size), in order to reduce by-catch; - lifting the closure of areas designed to protect herring spawning grounds in the ICES VIa division; - authorised use of fishing gear which do not catch lobster in certain areas where fishing for this species is banned; - keeping in place area closures designed to protect juvenile haddock in the ICES VIa division; - keeping in place measures designed to protect cod stocks in the Celtic Sea; - keeping in place measures aiming to protect blue ling in the spawning grounds of the ICES VIa division; - continuation of the authorisation in ICES divisions IVc and IVb South and under certain conditions of perch trawling involving the use of electrical impulses; - keeping in place measures aiming to protect stocks of adult cod in the Irish Sea during the spawning period; - conditional authorisation (protection of biologically sensitive deep-sea species) of the use of mesh nets at a depth of more than 200 metres, but less than 600 metres; - continuation of the authorisation to use certain selective fishing gears in the Bay of Biscay, in order to ensure the sustainable exploitation of stocks of hake and lobster and to reduce discards of these species; - fishing restrictions applicable in certain areas for the purposes of protecting vulnerable habitats in deep water; - updating the minimum landing size for Japanese clams and setting a minimum size for octopus in the region of the Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF). (LC/transl.fl)