The European Commission adopted, on Tuesday 27 October, its very incomplete proposal on Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and quotas for 2021 in the Atlantic, Channel and North Sea, due to the arrangements to be found with the United Kingdom for shared stocks.
The European Commissioner for Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, acknowledged on Tuesday that with Brexit, “we will have to share the majority of our stocks with our new neighbour”.
“Brexit makes the situation more complex” for determining fisheries quotas for 2021, he added in response to a question from the press.
The fact that the UK is no longer an EU Member State means that “the UK will no longer take part in the negotiations in the Council. The UK must be consulted on shared stocks, in the same way as we do with other non-Member States, such as Norway”, explained the Commissioner.
Stability and certainty. He added that he could not discuss the ongoing EU/UK negotiations. “We are in a critical phase” of these talks, in order to try to reach an agreement by the end of the year. “We are in contact with the German Council Presidency to avoid delays in the decisions to be taken on fishing opportunities for 2021, in order to give fishermen as much certainty and stability as we can”, he added.
The Commission is working towards an agreement with the United Kingdom on fisheries. “We have to consider all scenarios”, European sources said on Tuesday. “We hope that we can soon make progress towards an agreement with the United Kingdom”, they stated.
The United Kingdom requires annual negotiations on mutual access to UK waters, the total volume of fishing permitted and the quotas allocated to each state.
The EU refuses to question the distribution of quotas between countries every year, as this could lead to clashes among the EU27, and it proposes that the United Kingdom maintain quotas and guarantee reciprocal access to each other’s waters.
A very incomplete proposal. Sustainable fisheries have made considerable progress in the EU, according to the Commission. In 2020, 62 out of 78 TACs are set at a level that provides a sound basis for securing the future of the biomass of fish stocks while taking into account socio-economic factors (Maximum Sustainable Yield or MSY), compared to only five out of 35 in 2009. Despite reduced fishing activity in the first months of the Covid-19 pandemic, preliminary results show that the sector remains profitable, with gross profits estimated to reach €1.5 billion in 2020.
The TACs proposed for 2021 include the following: -13% to 3,672 tonnes for anglerfish in Spanish and Portuguese waters (Spain 2,934 t, France 3 t, Portugal 584 t); -13% to 7,825 t (Spain 4,889 t, France 469 t, Portugal 2,281 t) for hake in the Iberian and Portuguese zones; -11% for megrims (Iberian and Portuguese zones) to 2,158 t; -11% for lobster in this zone; +5% for Atlantic horse mackerel (128,627 t, of which 91,211 t for Portugal).
In addition, the Commission is proposing to reduce catches of several stocks of plaice (-69% in the Kattegat, for example) and sole (between -8% and -42% depending on the zone) and cuts of 20 or 30% in the case of pollack. For more details: https://bit.ly/3e39XIG (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)