Brussels, 15/12/2006 (Agence Europe) - In a press release published on 13 December, Europêche, the Association of National Fisheries Organisations in the EU, and the fisheries section of COGECA, the General Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives in the EU, expressed their opposition to most of the European Commission's proposals, which would result in considerable reductions in fishing possibilities for EU vessels next year. The Council of Ministers will meet in Brussels from 19 to 21 December to set 2007 total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas.
These organisations reject in particular the 25% drop in TACs and the reduction in fishing days for cod stocks affected by the recovery plan (North Sea, Irish Sea, West Scotland, East Channel, Skagerrak and Kattegat). Fishing professionals are calling for the status quo to be retained on days at sea and TACs for these stocks “as long as the symposium on the cod recovery plan to take place in March 2007 has not come to further recommendations”. In addition, the organisations are calling for an end to TAC reductions for associated species (“precautionary TACs) until there has been a scientific assessment of the state of these stocks. The Commission is proposing these reductions to protect cod stocks in the North Sea.
Europêche and COGEGA feel too that some of the reductions proposed are not supported by clear scientific evidence and “will have new serious socio-economic consequences”. They speak, for example, of reductions in days at sea and reductions in quotas of cod in northern waters, herring in the North Sea, sardines (northern stock), hake and langoustine caught by Spain and Portugal.
The sector says it is “aware of the state in which a certain number of fish stocks are”, but cannot accept quota reductions of over 15% which “destabilises deeply the production conditions of fishing enterprises”. Europêche and COGECA the following proposals are unacceptable unless they are accompanied by “substantial socio-economic compensations”: common dab (-20%), whiting (between -20 and -78%), ling (approximately -30%), plaice (approximately -20%), saithe (-20.01%), common sole (approximately -20%), sprat (-38.10%), horse mackerel (from -15 to -20%), skates and rays (-44.83%) and tusk (between -22.5 and 28.5%). The prospect of an extension to the anchovy ban in the Bay of Biscay until the middle of 2007 “is worrying the sector”, which believes the total closure of a fishery has a negative effect due to the pressure of possible transfer of the fishing effort to other fisheries.
The positive effect of recovery measures for northern hake, the organisations say, should see an end to restrictions in days at sea. They call for a management plan, which can vary quotas and control measures, instead of a recovery plan, which provides for a limited number of authorised fishing days. Europêche and COGECA stress, finally, the need for “additional financial support to the scientific research and to concretise the promotion of a partnership between scientists and the industry”. (lc)