Brussels, 27/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - Following a long night of tense negotiations, European fisheries ministers managed to reach an agreement on Wednesday 27 February in Brussels, on the gradual ban on non-marketable discards. This agreement seeks to restrict wasteful catches and make EU fishing more sustainable.
The practice of discarding fish consists in throwing non-marketable fish overboard because they are too small, damaged or cannot be included in quotas. They represent a quarter of all total EU catches. The obligation on fishermen to land even non-marketable fish will mean they will have to be more selective.
After 20 hours of negotiations, EU ministers decided to impose a ban on discards of pelagic species from 2014, said the Irish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers in a press release. The obligation to land all fish caught will be phased-in approach until 2019, gradually including more and more fish species and geographical areas. It will apply to pelagic stocks in the Baltic Sea from January 2015. The discard ban will apply to the main demersal stocks in the North Sea and the North and South Western waters from 2016. Finally the discard ban will come into force for fisheries in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and all other EU waters on 1 January 2017. Exemptions, however, have been included to help fishermen adapt to the new rules. This is why an exemption will allow the discarding of up to 9% of catches in the first two years, falling to 8% in the next two and 7% in the final phase. Fish landed could be used for charitable purposes. The final compromise obtained the support of 26 member states. Sweden, however, demanded a stricter approach.
The text is part of the common fisheries policy (CFP) reform and will still need to be discussed at the European Parliament, which gave its approval on 6 February for a gradual ban on discards from 2014 but without exceptions (see EUROPE 10780). The Irish Presidency is hoping to reach an agreement before the end of its mandate at the end of June.
The Irish minister for fisheries, Simon Coveney, described the compromise as a positive turning point, not only for those concerned by fish stocks but also for fishermen who want to be able to fish in another five or ten years. The commissioner for fisheries, Maria Damanaki, welcomed the “major change” to the CFP and pointed out that the Commission would do all it could to help member states to adapt their fishing fleets to this new situation. NGOs unanimously regretted that the ban on discards was total. (OL/transl.fl)