On Tuesday 19 February, the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries approved (15 votes in favour, 6 against and 2 abstentions) the compromise between institutions on the multiannual plan for the management of demersal stocks in the western Mediterranean (see EUROPE 12187).
The plan offers Member States considerable flexibility in terms of the measures to be put in place to save overexploited fish stocks in the Mediterranean.
Parliament will adopt this plan at the April plenary session.
The plan provides for the establishment of a fishing mortality rate in line with MSY (maximum sustainable yield) to be progressively achieved by 2020, where possible, and no later than 1 January 2025. The deadline for reaching MSY had been set at 2020, but that goal is impossible to meet for stocks in the Mediterranean (80% of stocks are overexploited).
The plan “will not put an end to overfishing by 2020, but will extend the deadline to 2025, in violation of the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy”, protests the NGO Oceana, which asserts that the French, Spanish and Italian governments, “strongly influenced by the fishing industry, deliberately allow overfishing”.
The plan provides for a closure for trawls operating within 6 nautical miles of the coast, “except in areas deeper than the 100 metre isobath during three months each year”. The text provides for the possibility of establishing other closure areas to reduce catches of juvenile hake by at least 20%. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)