The European Commission presented on Wednesday 5 August a delegated act extending for 3 years, until 31 December 2023, the 2018 regulation granting exemptions from landing requirements for small pelagic fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea.
The purpose of the landing obligation is to eliminate the practice of discarding fish at sea. In the Mediterranean, the landing obligation applies from 1 January 2015 to fishermen who catch small pelagic species subject to a minimum conservation reference size, specifically anchovy, sardine, mackerel and horse mackerel.
The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) Regulation provides for a flexibility mechanism granting a specific exemption (de minimis) where scientific evidence indicates that it is very difficult to improve selectivity or to avoid disproportionate costs associated with the treatment of unwanted catches.
The Commission is empowered to adopt a delegated act establishing a de minimis exemption from the landing obligation, limiting this exemption to an amount not exceeding 5% of the total annual catch of all species to which the landing obligation applies.
The Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) indicates that the evidence justifies the granting of the exemption. The proposal (to be accepted by the EU Council and the European Parliament) provides for the extension until 31 December 2023 of the temporary exemption already granted until 31 December 2020 by the delegated regulation in question: – de minimis exemption for anchovy, sardine, mackerel and horse mackerel up to 5% of the total annual catch of these species, taken by vessels using pelagic trawls and purse seines in the western Mediterranean, the Adriatic Sea and the south-eastern Mediterranean Sea, except the island of Malta, southern Sicily, the Aegean Sea, the island of Crete, the southern Adriatic Sea and the Ionian Sea (3% of the total catch in these cases). Link to the text: https://bit.ly/3keEnKy (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)