At the EU ‘Agriculture and Fisheries’ Council on Monday 26 January, Spain, France and Italy, supported by Belgium and Greece in particular, called for a rapid review of the Western Mediterranean Multiannual Plan for the management of fish stocks.
The European Commissioner for Fisheries, Costas Kadis, said that he had instructed his departments to begin the procedures for revising this management plan immediately.
With regard to the Hague benchmark, he said that the outcome of this scientific process should guarantee a high-quality result that is relevant to stock assessment. The experience gained in this context is useful for “any scientific reviews of other stock assessments, where justified and where resources allow”, according to the Commissioner.
The Commission remains fully committed to working with the Member States on stock recovery trajectories, in the interests of both fish stocks and fishers: there is no alternative, in his view.
With regard to the request to adopt multiannual decisions for setting fishing opportunities, such an approach would require “stable stocks with low scientific uncertainty to be able to set effort reduction for two or three years”, replied Mr Kadis.
In a system based on fishing effort (days at sea), it is “however very challenging to establish multiannual effort days”, added the Commissioner.
He recalled that the Commission had not supported the EU Council’s political agreement in December 2025 on 2026 quotas in the Mediterranean. “The Commission will conduct thorough analysis of the regulation as adopted, including on the compensation mechanism to see how it can be implemented by Member States”, concluded the Commissioner (see EUROPE 13773/14).
To see the Spanish note: https://aeur.eu/f/key
Controls. Some countries (Spain, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Latvia, Poland, Portugal) have advocated (https://aeur.eu/f/kf0 ) a simplification of Regulation 1224/2009 on controls. The new obligations concerning the quantities to be recorded in the logbook are problematic, as are those concerning the electronic catch certification system (CATCH). The countries’ requests are: - maintain the obligation to register from zero kilograms, but deviations of less than 50 kg should not constitute non-compliance; - errors of less than 50 kg in estimating catches should no longer be considered as serious infringements. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)