Brussels, 03/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - At the seventh North Atlantic fisheries ministers conference last Wednesday to Friday in St Petersburg (Russia), Commissioner Franz Fischler again called the relevant countries (the Faeroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland and Norway) to closely cooperate with the EU to find a solution to the problem of dwindling blue whiting stocks. On the fringes of the conference Fischler and the President of the Russian Federation's state committee for fisheries, Evgeny Nazdratenko, agreed to plan to open formal negotiations in July 2002 with a view to signing a fisheries agreement.
Franz Fischler has long been calling on other coastal states outside the EU to put a halt to uncontrolled fishing of whiting, noting that the latest scientific reports from the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) will be published soon (see EUROPE of 22 February, p.12). He called on all the relevant states to meet as soon as possible afterwards to assess the reports and agree to implement the multi-annual whiting management plan signed in December 2001 for the Total Allowable Catches and sharing the catches.
At the conference, attended by the fisheries ministers of Canada, the Faeroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Russia, participants highlighted the importance of preparing measures to manage unregulated species and in particular deep sea species. The parties felt it was also important to cooperate in the development of management measures for stocks in areas under the responsibility of regional fisheries organisations such as the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) and the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC). Among the other topics discussed was the development of the North East Atlantic global ecosystem monitoring and the development of an international programme to study the effects of marine mammals on North Atlantic fish stocks.