Brussels, 02/04/2007 (Agence Europe) - The fisheries ministers of EU member states bordering on the Baltic Sea signed a declaration in Copenhagen (Denmark) on 28 March in which they pledged to use all possible means to control unreported cod fishing in the Baltic. EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg was one of the signatories. He said the declaration proved that the signatory countries (Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) wanted to step up controls and improve monitoring. The declaration was signed on the fringes of a meeting of the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council (RAC) which had been convened to discuss ways of doing more to combat illegal fishing in the Baltic Sea.
In the declaration, the EU Baltic states 'undertake their responsibility to strengthen, where appropriate, fish inspection activities; and to thoroughly investigate unreported and unrecorded catches in their respective countries and take efficient actions to combat them.' The Baltic Sea member states undertook 'to implement a transparent system of utilisation of national quotas of cod by providing a regular uptake of their quota on their control website', and to 'estimate and, as appropriate, adjust their fishing capacity to a level in balance with catch possibilities.' In this connection, they mention the option of the Commission issuing quota reductions (as it did recently for Irish and UK herring and mackerel fishermen). The Baltic Sea fisheries ministers want the Commission to 'initiate close cooperation with Russia' (the only Baltic country fishing in the Baltic that is not a member of the EU since the 2004 wave of EU enlargement) concerning fishing controls. This is a vital area of the declaration because Russian fishermen are suspected of being the main perpetrators of illegal fishing (see EUROPE 9334 on the new EU-Russia fisheries framework).
For several years now, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has estimated that some 35-45% of total cod catches in the Eastern Baltic are undeclared. In line with the 24 October 2006 decisions on Baltic Sea fishing quotas, the Baltic EU member states will be holding a ministerial summit and a Baltic Sea RAC conference in the spring on tackling illegal cod fishing (see EUROPE 9325). The fish quota deal foresees a slight reduction in cod catches (by 10% in the Eastern Baltic and 6% in the Western Baltic) as long as the countries concerned agreed by 30 June 2007 on an ambitious plan to reconstitute cod stocks in the Baltic, failing which cod quotas will be cut by 15% in both the Eastern and Western Baltic. (lc)