Brussels, 14/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - The Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU hopes that the EU institutions will come to agreement between now and the end of June on the cod recovery plan in the Baltic Sea, which is currently under discussion in Council-Commission-Parliament trialogue. The Presidency confirmed during a debate in the Parliament fisheries committee on Thursday 14 January that the other issues addressed in the course of the first six months of this year will be technical measures, the discard ban and deep-water trawling (see EUROPE 11461).
Martijn van Dam, the Dutch minister who currently chairs the meetings of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, said that the future of fishing had to be guaranteed and citizens had to be able to continue to eat fish. A balance has to be achieved between consumption and what nature can bear, he said.
Cod recovery plan in the Baltic Sea. Several MEPs, including Gabriel Mato (EPP, Spain), Ulrike Rodust (S&D, Germany), Antonio Marinho e Pinto (ALDE, Portugal), Marco Affronte (EFDD, Italy) and Anja Hazekamp (GUE/NGL, Netherlands), stressed the urgent need to reach interinstitutional agreement on this the first recovery plan under the provisions of the revised common fisheries policy (CFP). Van Dam, the Dutch minister, felt that “good progress” had been made in trialogue discussions over recent months. There were some difficult points but he believed a satisfactory solution could be found. Jaroslaw Walesa (EPP, Poland), the rapporteur on this issue, was optimistic: a timetable with technical and trialogue meetings was in place, he said, and he was persuaded that a satisfactory conclusion could be reached.
Technical measures. A number of MEPs, including Mato and Peter van Dalen (ECR, Netherlands), raised this sensitive subject. The Commission is due to bring forward its proposal in the next few months and the Dutch Presidency is planning, at this stage, to hold a debate on it in Council in June. The issue of drift nets will be discussed within the context of technical measures (the earlier proposal was for a pure and simple ban on this type of gear but it was withdrawn by the Commission). “We are awaiting the Commission proposal”, said van Dam, noting nonetheless that the Netherlands is highly critical of drift nets, which, it is claimed, accidentally cause the deaths of dolphins, turtles and sea birds.
Discard bans. Responding to concerns expressed by van Dalen and Ian Duncan (ECR, UK), van Dam acknowledged that application (in 2016 for some demersal species) of the landing obligation could be problematic for fishermen. “We are keeping a very close eye on this issue and the grace period should allow fishermen to become used to the measures” requiring that the whole catch is landed and any problems that occur will be discussed in Council, he said. “We are working with the sector to make sure that the landing obligation is brought in smoothly”, he added. The matter of harmonisation of monitoring also has to be considered, he conceded. “Differing regimes could create confusion, which is something that must be avoided”, he stated, highlighting the need to address this issue regionally.
Deep-water trawling. Isabelle Thomas (S&D, France) pointed out that progress had been made on this issue under the Luxembourg Presidency. van Dam said that a calendar of meetings (trialogues) had been put in place to take this matter forward. He gave assurances that “the European Parliament's constructive work will continue to be taken into account”. Thomas is the rapporteur on deep-water trawling.
Information gathering. In reply to questions from Marinho e Pinto and Affronte, van Dam confirmed that it was hoped that an agreement would be reached as quickly as possible between the Council and the Parliament (according to the provisional timetable, this would be in June) on the new framework for the collection of fishing information. However, duplication must be avoided, he stressed, and only necessary information gathered.
Clara Eugenia Aguilera Garcia (S&D, Spain) raised the issue of small-scale, artisanal fishing and criticised the Netherlands for not addressing fisheries agreements with third countries. Hazekamp raised the issue of the welfare of fish (cruelty of allowing fish to die from asphyxiation) and the Presidency promised a debate on this matter in February (on animal welfare but the issue of fish will be broached). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)