Brussels, 04/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - An agreement seems to be at hand on future procedures to approve the management (or recovery) plans for fish stocks, a key element of the new common fisheries policy (CFP).
The adoption of these management plans has been blocked since the Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009, as the Council and the European Parliament failed to find any common ground on the legal basis to be used to approve these plans.
The task force set up by the EP, the Council and the European Commission to debate the next steps in setting the multi-annual management plans in place, in line with the new CFP, completed its work on 2 April. It will present its report next week, including to the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States to the EU (Coreper).
The management plans are extremely important in the implementation of the rules of the CFP, particularly on the ban on discards and the maximum sustainable yield (MSY). The task force is believed to have agreed on the main elements to feature in the future multi-annual plans. The plans will take account of the CFP's objective of achieving the MSY (target values expressed on the basis of scientific references). More stringent conservation measures could be adopted should the biomass of fish stocks fall.
The drafting of these plans, to be steered by the Commission, will be based on the best scientific opinion available, and the plans could provide for detailed rules to be put together, such as technical measures, on the basis of the principle of regionalisation laid down in the new CFP.
The stock recovery plans are one of the key elements of the CFP. However, four of them are currently blocked at Council level: - the horse mackerel plan for the Atlantic and the anchovy plan for the Bay of Biscay (although the latter of these is in force in practice); - the salmon plan and the cod plan in the Baltic Sea.
As regards the cod plan in the Atlantic and the North Sea, the Council decided in December 2012 to divide the proposal into two legislative acts, the former providing for the ordinary procedure (co-decision) and the latter conferring the decision-making power on the Council. This solution was described as “unacceptable” by the European Parliament, which brought the matter before the Court of Justice of the EU. Readers may recall that Parliament took the view that the adoption procedure for the plans should be co-decision (Article 43.2, on the ordinary legislative procedure), whereas the Council and its legal services argued that it was up to the member states to decide on the elements of these plans with a bearing on the division of fishing possibilities (Article 43.3 of the Treaty). The compromise reached is that no provisions on fishing possibilities will be laid down in the plans.
The Commission has already welcomed this agreement on the multi-annual management plans, which has not yet been confirmed by the Council, ahead of a meeting of Coreper on the subject. (LC)