On Thursday 29 September, the Council of the EU adopted, without debate, its position on amendments to Regulation 1342 of 2008 establishing a long-term plan for cod stocks.
The text covers the cod stocks of Kattegat, North Sea, Skagerrak, Eastern Channel, West of Scotland and Irish Sea, and the new rules will come into force from 1 January 2017.
Negotiators from the institutions reached a political compromise at a trialogue meeting on 29 June 2016 (see EUROPE 11584). The new rules seek to end the current system for managing fishing effort.
The European Parliament will give second reading approval to the Council position and the text will be formally adopted.
The text introduces a degree of flexibility in the rules on total allowable catches, better harmonises calculation of fishing effort and brings in fresh incentives to the fishing effort restriction scheme, in particular to reduce discards of cod.
New multi-annual plans for multi-species fisheries in various zones in the Atlantic are currently being drafted. Regulation 1342/2008 will, then, ultimately be replaced by a new multi-annual plan for each of the zones. At the start of August, the Commission presented a proposal for a multi-annual plan for the management of demersal fish stocks (cod, haddock, plaice, saithe, sole, hake and Norway lobster) in the North Sea (see EUROPE 11606). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)