Brussels, 10/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - EU Member States' fisheries ministers will try and reach agreement at their next meeting on 24/25 October on recovery plans for Southern hake and Norway lobster in the Bay of Biscay and the Spanish and Portuguese Coast. Spain and Portugal, the two countries most directly involved, have reservations about the closure of fishing zones to protect the Northern lobster stock. The negotiations will be held on this issue at the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU Member States on 14 October to see whether it will be possible to reach agreement at the Council.
On 6 October, the British Presidency presented EU Member States' fisheries experts (a Council working group) with a compromise document inspired by the opinion of the European Parliament in April 2005 (see EUROPE 8930) on recovery plans for the Southern hake and Northern lobster. According to the amended proposals, the objective of the recovery plan includes the target to reach for Southern hake of reaching spawning stock biomass of 35,000 tonnes of hake during two consecutive years or to reach this target within 10 years. For Norway lobster, no targets are included, simply 'to rebuild the stocks within safe biological limits within 10 years'. Other measures include no more than 22 days fishing per month for hake and Norway lobster, and two well-defined fishing bans to protect Norway lobster stocks (one near Galicia in Spain and the other along the West Portuguese Coast).
The most sensitive issue is closure of the fishing zones. Spain wants the fishing ban in Zone 3 near Galicia to be reduced to three months. Portugal totally opposes any idea of fishing bans on its Western Coasts (Zone 4) since this would be a problem for ships not shipping Norway lobster (the fishing ban applies to all fishermen, irrespective of the species they fish, Ed.). Portugal agrees on a fishing ban in another zone to the south of the country where, it argues, there is a big concentration of Norway lobster. At this stage in the negotiations, the Commission has not agreed to Portugal's request.
Early in 2004, the European Commission published Southern hake and Northern lobster recovery plans. At the end of December 2004, the Fisheries Council decided to integrate provisional protection measures for Southern hake and Northern lobster into the fishing quota regulation for 2005 (see EUROPE 8854). The aim now is to decide on recovery plans for several years to come.