Brussels, 18/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - On 14 March, the European Commission adopted a proposal providing technical measures to ensure the conservation of fish resources in the waters of the Baltic Sea, the Belts and the Øresund. In the Baltic Sea, the main species subject to quotas are herring, sprat, cod, salmon and plaice. The objective of this proposal is to re-examine the Community rules of 1998 on the meshing of fishing gears, periods of fishing bans and minimum sizes for fish to be landed. These rules take their inspiration from measures taken by the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission (IBSFC), the regional fisheries organisation competent in the region. However, the organisation has, in a sense, been made obsolete by the recent enlargement of the EU to the Baltic States. The EU feels that this regional fishing organisation should be replaced by bilateral cooperation with Russia. The Commission would like to bring in a “global and coherent system of technical measures for the Community waters”, improving upon the rules laid down by the IBSFC.
To sum up, the Commission is proposing: -to put an end to rules which are not necessary for the preservation of stocks; -to reduce the number of fishing gears and the minimum mesh sizes for fishing nets; -to harmonise temporary fishing closures and minimum landing sizes as far as possible; -to ban the use of towed nets which do not have an escape window (“BACOMA”-type fishing gear) when cod is the target species; -to draw up a simplified procedure allowing the Member States to take additional measures to be applied by ships flying their flag; -to oblige the Member States to establish a sampling system in the landing of unsorted catches of herring and sprat.