Against a background of uncertainty about future relations with the UK, EU Fisheries Ministers are expected to decide, on 15-16 December in Brussels, to set provisional Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for 2021 for stocks shared with the UK (and Norway).
The fishing marathon at the end of December will take place without the UK, but efforts will focus on how to set the 100 or so TACs and quotas in the Atlantic and North Sea, whose stocks are jointly managed by the EU, the UK and Norway.
With regard to the TACs shared with the United Kingdom and Norway, the European Commission has proposed the principle of a “roll-over of 25% of 2020 catch volumes for three months”, according to a document seen by EUROPE. But discussions among Member States have shown that many questions remain about the proposed three-month deadline, exceptions due to seasonality or changes in scientific advice, according to the document.
Discussions at the technical level are ongoing on these ‘preliminary’ quotas. The most important thing is to ensure that EU fishermen will be able to fish from 1 January 2021, according to an EU source.
In addition, on Thursday 10 December, the Commission presented emergency measures to allow fishing activities by EU and UK vessels to continue until the conclusion of a fisheries agreement between the EU and the UK.
The regulation aims to create an appropriate legal framework until 31 December 2021, or until the conclusion of a fisheries agreement with the United Kingdom, whichever comes first, for the continued reciprocal access of EU and UK vessels to each other’s waters after 31 December 2020. Measures are foreseen to facilitate the authorisation procedures for fishing vessels (https://bit.ly/33ZQUuU ).
Deep water. Ministers will also have to determine the TACs for 2021 and 2022 for so-called deep-sea species. In addition to the issue of the stocks shared with the United Kingdom, the ministers will discuss these stocks: - black scabbardfish in waters 8 to 10 (the Commission proposes a 25% reduction in 2021, a reduction considered too large by France, Spain and Portugal); - red sea bream (the Commission proposes a 20% reduction in 2021 and Portugal and Spain call for a smaller reduction); - roundnose grenadier (the Commission’s proposal of a 90% reduction is accepted by the Member States) ; - deep-sea sharks (for all stocks, the Commission no longer proposes a by-catch TAC, but some countries, such as Portugal and France, want a small by-catch TAC).
Finally, Spain in particular contests a 15% drop in fishing effort in the Western Mediterranean in 2021, after -10% in 2020. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)