Ministers set to strike new fishing deal

Date: 20/03/1997

By Michael Mann

AFTER months of deadlock, EU fisheries ministers are expected to agree targets for reducing fish catches to the end of the century when they meet next month.

Hopes of a deal have risen after directors of fisheries from the 15 EU member states reacted positively to new proposals presented at a meeting late last week. Deputy ambassadors are expected to prepare the ground for final agreement when they meet next Wednesday (26 March).

But officials warn that it will probably still take ministers two days of negotiation when they meet in Luxembourg on 14-15 April to thrash out a number of points requiring agreement at the highest political level.

A new fleet reduction plan to preserve dwindling fish stocks in EU waters was supposed to be up and running by 1 January this year, but fierce opposition from member states with powerful fisheries lobbies has scuppered all previous attempts to force a breakthrough.

Now a more flexible proposal looks set to offer governments the room for manoeuvre they need to sell a deal back home.

“There has been a complete mood change. Everyone seems willing to sign up to a text in April. Whereas before we were bogged down on trying to be too detailed, the new approach is simpler and allows for much more flexibility,” said one member state official.

A few weeks ago, hopes of an end to the protracted dispute again suffered a set-back when EU governments gave a distinctly cool response to a new compromise tabled by Fisheries Commissioner Emma Bonino, not least because it sought to make deeper cuts in fishing activity than the last paper put forward by the Irish EU presidency in December.

But the latest document has been much more warmly welcomed, although no one appears to know who drafted it. “No one seems to want to own it,” said one diplomat.

The major change is a move away from a species-specific approach and back towards the notion of setting targets for each class of vessel, depending on the type of equipment used and the sort of fish caught.

Instead of focusing on individual species by, for example, specifically reducing the number of vessels catching plaice, overall targets would be set for boats fishing for a wider range of flat fish.

This would allow much more leeway for each country to decide how to share out the pain, moving back towards the approach used in the last 'Multi-Annual Guidance Programme' (MAGP), which expired on 31 December.

Diplomats claim the latest paper also marks a trend back towards the decommissioning of fishing boats, whereas earlier drafts had been less specific about how reductions in effort should be achieved.

Some countries, notably the UK, prefer the approach of limiting 'days at sea'.

Despite the renewed optimism about a deal in April, the most sensitive decisions - those most likely to spark anger in EU fishing ports - will have to be taken by ministers themselves.

These include the extent of cuts in catches, the maximum size of vessels which can be exempted from the scheme and a formula for how many old vessels must be broken up for each new one built. Some ministers are also continuing to take issue with the scientific data on which the plans are based.

British objections to the practice of 'quota hopping' present another possible problem, with UK Minister Tony Baldry insisting there can be no deal on effort reduction until he has gained satisfaction on this issue at the Intergovernmental Conference.

“There is something of a timing problem here, as the IGC will not finish until June,” said one official.

But even if the UK did decide to vote against a deal, it is highly unlikely it could gather sufficient support to muster enough votes to form a blocking minority.

However, even if a broad political deal is concluded next month, member states will still be left with the task of working out how to divide up the cuts at national level. The initial deadline for final agreement with the Commission on the share-out has now been moved to the end of November.

“On the evidence of what has gone before, these deadlines are bound to slip,” warned one diplomat.