On Tuesday 11 October, the European Parliament's fisheries committee expressed its hopes of making progress in discussions on the new multi-species management plan in the North Sea, despite considerable problems, such as the prospect of the UK, a country heavily involved in North Sea fishing, leaving the EU.
In early August, the Commission presented a proposal laying down a multi-annual management plan for demersal fish stocks (cod, haddock, plaice, pollock, sole, hake and langoustine) in the North Sea (see EUROPE 11606).
Negative effects of stocks and quotas. The chair of the Parliament's fisheries committee, Alain Cadec (EPP, France), also pointed out an issue stemming from the rule on the end of discards (tantamount to an obligation to land all catch). He argued that choke species rule, which will oblige fishermen to cease their activities once the quota for the choke species with the lowest quota is full, could have negative economic and social consequences on the fishing industry in the coming years. He said that there would then be an incompatibility between the two principal pillars of the common fisheries policy (CFP): maximum sustainable yield (MSY) on the one hand, which aims to put an end to over-fishing for all fish stocks by the end of 2020 at the latest, and the rule banning discards and obliging fishing boats to land all catch on the other. The chair of the committee said that the choke species issue could prompt the Council to agree to inflated quotas to offset the negative consequences of the landing requirement, which would make it impossible to achieve MSY by 2020. He feels that the management plans should focus principally on the objective of MSY. "It's either MSY or landing requirement", he said by way of conclusion. Cadec has never made any secret of his concerns that the landing obligation may defeat its own objectives, but not all MEPs agree with him on this.
Peter van Dalen (ECR, the Netherlands) also raised the problem of choke species in the North Sea. "Some species are at risk of extinction if we continue to catch them. The Commission needs to tell us how we can avoid disaster for the choke species", he said.
The representative of the European Commission acknowledged the likely difficulty in avoiding the choke species problem, but said that it should be possible to limit them.
The EPP and the S&D want swift progress. The rapporteur on this dossier, Ulrike Rodust (S&D, Germany), wants her report on the North Sea plan to be adopted in June 2017 by the fisheries committee. She stressed that the North Sea fishing industry was awaiting a decision as a matter of urgency and that they should therefore make haste. The EPP Group supports this timeframe. Jens Gieseke (EPP, Germany) observed that the proposal took its inspiration from the content of the recently approved management plan for the Baltic Sea, but stressed the need to take account of the specifics of the species caught in the North Sea. He called for a compromise to be sought between managing fishing activities and protecting the environment. Around 98% of these fishermen are small undertakings, which means that the measures need to be applicable on the ground. The fact that Norway fishes in the North Sea in EU waters should also be taken into account.
Brexit on all lips. Gieseke stressed the need to work on this plan quickly, irrespective of the negotiations on Brexit. Van Dalen also referred to the prospect of Brexit and expressed his reservations on the deadline for amendments to be submitted (5 April 2017). He feels that the timetable should be adjusted to come into line with the date of late March referred to by the British government for the country to trigger Article 50 on the process of withdrawing from the EU. He therefore called for more flexible timeframes. Ian Hudghton (Greens/EFA, UK) said that on this dossier, "working quickly" and "rushing" should not be confused with each other.
Nils Torvalds (ALDE, Finland) also spelt out the fact that Brexit would have consequences. The Dutch fishing industry, for instance, catches a large amount of herring in British waters. The Commission representative kicked the issue of Brexit into touch, pointing out that when the Commission went to work three years ago on the North Sea management plan, Brexit was not even on the radar. "So we've gone on in the same way, not taking account of Brexit".
He also called upon the Parliament to be vigilant regarding this North Sea management plan, to avoid the mistakes made on the Baltic management plan. Linnéa Engström (Greens/EFA, Sweden) essentially said that the Commission's proposal for the North Sea management plan was not ambitious enough on the MSY. She expressed the view that the Baltic management plan had failed. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)