The provisions on banning the discarding of fish at sea now, for the first time, extend to catches in the Mediterranean and Black Seas, the European Commission points out in a press release published on Tuesday 31 January.
Ending the practice of throwing unwanted fish or species on which authorised quotas have been reached overboard and back into the sea was agreed in the reform of the common fisheries policy (CFP) in 2014.
The requirement that all catches be landed is to be phased in between 2015 and 2019. In 2015, it began by applying to pelagic species, industrial fishing and the main fisheries in the Baltic. In 2016, it was extended to include demersal species in the North Sea and the Atlantic (with a deadline of 2019). In 2017, further Atlantic species will be covered, while catches in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea are included for the first time.
The European Commission has adopted a raft of discard plans for the Baltic, the North Sea and the Atlantic, based on recommendations by member states (see EUROPE 11667 and 11644). Since 1 January 2017, additional discard plans have been in place for certain demersal fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea, including hake, red mullet and some bivalves.
A further innovation in 2017 is that member states must start applying a points system for illegal discarding. They will also need to send additional data to the Scientific Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF), so that scientists can advise the Commission on updating the discard plans if necessary.
The European Commission has co-financed pilot projects, such as DisCatch, which focuses on demersal and small pelagic trawl fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea.
Conference on the contribution of the blue economy in the Mediterranean. How can the blue economy drive sustainable development in the western Mediterranean? That is the theme of a conference to be held in Barcelona on 2 February 2017, bringing together more than 200 participants and 70 experts from Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania. The conference has been organised by the European Commission in close cooperation with the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)