European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries approved on Wednesday 3 June (23 votes in favour, three against and one abstention) the text negotiated with the EU Council on transposing certain provisions relating to fishing in the area covered by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) agreement.
The new measures are intended to improve the conservation and control, as well as the sustainable exploitation of marine species, while reducing the impact of fishing activities on vulnerable marine ecosystems and non-target species (see EUROPE 13859/6).
The measures adopted for more sustainable exploitation of fishery resources include: banning recreational fishing for eel; spatial-temporal restrictions in the Levant Sea, the Ionian Sea and the Strait of Sicily on fishing for giant red shrimp as well as blue and red shrimp; the closure of red coral fishing when a catch threshold is reached; spatial-temporal restrictions in the Strait of Sicily in order to manage European hake and deep-water rose shrimp fisheries; fishery closures in the Adriatic Sea, as well as for European sprat in the Black Sea, concerning small pelagic fisheries (anchovy and sardine); spatial-temporal closures in the Alboran Sea for blackspot seabream fishing; management measures for dolphinfish fishing; introducing a catch certificate for Black Sea turbot; and scientific monitoring of piked dogfish fisheries in the Black Sea.
The agreement also includes protection measures for elasmobranch species, seabirds, sea turtles and cetaceans.
The new regulation further includes provisions on transhipments and other measures aimed at combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The provisional agreement must now be formally adopted by the European Parliament as a whole, with a vote expected in September. It will enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Link to the text of the agreement: https://aeur.eu/f/m69 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)