The European Commission argued the case before MEPs in Brussels on Monday 25 September for its recent proposal seeking to ban fishing for silver eel in the Baltic Sea (see EUROPE 11850).
The Commission will also begin work, which will take several years, to revise the 2007 regulation on measures to rebuild eel stocks in the EU. A combination of a number of initiatives is required said the Commission representative.
She said that lever recruitment had declined by 90% since the 1960-1980 period and expressed the view that, despite the 2007 regulation, there had been “no improvement in the eel situation”. Furthermore, the regulation may not be in line with the rules of the reformed common fisheries policy. Scientific opinion recommends that eel fishing be maintained at a level close to zero, the Commission argued.
Werner Kuhn (EPP, Germany) and Ulrike Rodust (S&D, Germany) were critical of what they saw as a harsh proposal brought forward without consultation by the Commission. “I don’t understand why this announcement has come out of the blue, like a bomb. It’s a bad signal to send”, railed Kuhn. Rodust suggested that the mortality rate had to be reduced by means, rather, of the 2007 regulation on eels.
Linnéa Engström (Greens/EFA, Sweden), who chaired the meeting of the Parliament’s fisheries committee in place of Alain Cadec, said that adult eels had to be allowed to live so that they could reproduce. She advanced the idea of Community aid for the fishermen hardest hit by the ban.
The Commission stated that, if the ban were to be accepted by the Council in October, it would come into force on 1 January 2018 (at the same time as the 2018 fishing quotas in the Baltic). Some EU countries might also find this prohibition measure too tough. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)