Brussels, 20/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - The decision by the EU Fisheries Council in December 2006 to reduce cod quotas by only 14% ignores the scientific advice of ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) on fishing quotas, according to the WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature). WWF UK is therefore taking the Council of the European Union to the European Court of Justice for failing to follow its own rules regarding cod fisheries and therefore breaching EU law (the Cod Recovery Plan). In order for the case to be heard, WWF will have to prove that it has the right to be heard before the European Courts of Justice which have traditionally been very reluctant to grant access to environmental NGOs unless they have been directly and individually affected by the decision in question. WWF is arguing that its participation in the North Sea Regional Advisory Council affords it a special role in the decision-making process. The EU Court of First Instance has never yet allowed a complaint lodged by an NGO against the European institutions.
ICES is made up of some 150 scientists from two dozen countries who quantify the biological situation and health of fisheries resources in the North Atlantic, in part to help draw up appropriate annual fishing quotas. ICES said that cod stocks in the North Sea, Skaggerak and the Western Channel were below the 'critical mass' of 70,000 tonnes. According to the WWF, this means that under Article 7 of the Council Regulation 423/2004 on cod stocks, the Council should have decided in December to cut cod quotas by at least 15% on the previous year but it actually decided to cut TACs (total allowable catches) by only 14% (see EUROPE 9333).
According to the WWF, a crucial principle is at stake here. Tom Pickerell, WWF Fisheries Policy Officer, explained that 'the Council of Ministers have no accountability for not obeying the specific harvest control rules in the Cod Recovery Plan. ICES had recommended that each of the fisheries in the recovery zone be set a Total Allowable Catch of zero and this was later modified by the EU Commission's Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries (STECF) to take into account socio-economics which recommended a 25% cut in TACs.' The fishing quotas set by the Council do not take scientific opinion seriously.
It is rare for an NGO to take a case to the European courts, and even rarer for the case to actually be accepted. The EC Treaty does not allow cases to be brought by 'moral' or 'physical' persons even if directly or individually affected by the case in question, which is why Greenpeace's case against EU subsidies for two power stations in the Canary Islands in 1995 (Case T-585/93) was not validated. The WWF argues that since it is an executive member of the North Sea Regional Advisory Council (RAC), it is directly affected by the Council's decision.
The WWF backs ICES' recommendation of a zero cod quota but recognises that such a fishing ban would not be acceptable politically. It is, however, hoping to achieve the more modest ambition of getting the Council to respect its own decisions. Information on how fishing quotas are set can be found on the DG Fish website: http://www.ec.europa.eu/fisheries/faq/resources_en.htm (lc)