Brussels, 27/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 27 July, the Council of ministers of the European Union adopted, without debate, the regulation excluding certain vessels from the fishing effort scheme that forms part of the recovery plans for cod stocks in the North Sea, Kattegat, Skagerrak, West of Scotland and the Irish Sea. A number of changes have been made to the initial proposal (see EUROPE 9943), including the removal from the final version of the text of an indication of the number of vessels affected.
Under the regulation on the cod recovery plan, the Council can exempt certain groups of vessels from the terms of the fishing effort management scheme, if these vessels catch very few cod.
For the moment, only the Spanish and Swedish requests have been accepted by the Commission. The regulation allows the groups of vessels below to be excluded from application of the fishing effort management scheme: 1) the group of vessels flying the flag of Spain fishing mainly for deep-sea species and hake by means of bottom trawls of mesh size equal to or larger than 100 mm and operating on the continental shelf slope off the West of Scotland in depths between 200 and 1000 metres; 2) the group of vessels flying the flag of Sweden, fishing for Norway lobster in the Skagerrak and Kattegat during the period in which these vessels fish solely with a sorting grid. The regulation is applicable from 1 February 2009. (L.C./transl.rt)