Brussels, 08/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - European fisheries ministers were unable, on Monday evening 7 May, to endorse international decision on the bluefin tuna recovery plan in the Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic. They also failed to reach a compromise on recovery measures for European eel stocks. The Council decided to push back final negotiation on these two matters until its next meeting in Luxembourg on 11-12 June.
According to his spokeswoman, the European fisheries commissioner was “very disappointed and concerned by the lack of effort shown by member states to put in place urgent measures to rebuild stocks of these two species”.
According to some sources, the European Commission's priority was seen as a political agreement on the recovery measures for bluefin tuna that were supposed to come into force on 13 June 2007 at the latest. France, however, (for reasons related particularly to its political timetable) and Italy (which opposed, in particular, changes in the dates of the fishing seasons and the increase, from 10 kg to 30 kg, in the weight below which bluefin tuna cannot be landed and sold) called for the adoption of these measures to be postponed until June. Above all, at the end of the evening, the Council noted that there was not the required quorum of ministers (14 ministers) to be able to go on to vote. Dr Borg warned ministers that the provisional EU fishing quota (9,397 tonnes for 2007, 50% less than in 2006) set in December 2006, could be reached by the end of May. The Commission would then be required to close the fishery. In adopting the recovery plan, ministers would, at the same time, have endorsed a higher total allowable catch (TAC) for the EU (16,700 tonnes, 8% less than the 2006 TAC) and, thus, with greater fishing possibilities, have allowed fishing to continue for much longer. In addition, Ireland and the United Kingdom, recently sanctioned for exceeding their herring and mackerel quotas, called for France and Spain to be sanctioned for exceeding their allowable catches of bluefin tuna in 2005 and 2006. In November 2006, however, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) took the decision to ignore quota excesses, because of a lack of information on the countries involved.
Just as was the case one month ago, ministers failed to reach agreement on recovery measures for eels, because of deep differences over restocking European basins with elvers (French and Spanish). France and Spain were prepared to accept a quantitative restocking target (around 50% of elvers caught by 2013), on condition that there was a safeguard clause in the event of too great a drop in the price paid by northern countries for elvers for restocking purposes (EU prices are far lower than those on the Asian markets). The German presidency, however, did not wish to include the Spanish and French position in the compromise text, thus deadlocking the matter. (lc)