On Friday 7 June, the European Commission said that “far fewer fish stocks are now overfished compared to 2003” and that fishermen have been seeing the socio-economic benefits of managing stocks at healthier levels for some time.
The European Commission has adopted its communication, which sets out the state of play and guidelines for 2025, particularly with regard to fishing opportunities and the state of stocks, which varies according to the seas concerned. Improvements in the state of fish resources have been noted in the North-East Atlantic and the Mediterranean, while the situation in the Baltic Sea is considered “extremely worrying”.
After peaking at €1.2 per litre in 2022, fuel prices gradually fell to between €0.8 and €0.9 per litre in the first quarter of 2024, according to the communication, which is the first step before adopting the forthcoming proposals on total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas for 2025. At current prices, the EU fishing fleet “can expect to produce a gross value added of around €2.5 billion”, cover its operating costs and maintain the jobs and salaries of around 122,000 fishermen, according to the European Commission. This is a significant improvement on 2022, when most EU fishing fleets were unable to cover their operating costs, the European Commission points out.
Link to the communication and accompanying working document: https://aeur.eu/f/ckq (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)