22 April Fisheries Council

Date: 25/04/1996

MINISTERS unanimously agreed on a more flexible quota system which will allow fishermen to use 10&percent; of the next year's national quota one year, on condition that this is balanced out the following year. Likewise, any quota not used one year could be transferred to the following year. Officials suggested there was little leeway for much flexibility, because quotas were so tight. The new system will also reduce wastage caused by the discarding of fish caught as 'by-catches' whose quotas have already been exhausted. Commission plans to allow up to 20&percent; overfishing in a year were rejected on the grounds that they might endanger stocks. Fisheries Commissioner Emma Bonino stressed that the system was “not a blank cheque because it is backed up by restrictions and penalties”. Fishermen will also be able to overfish by up to 5&percent; for “precautionary” stocks where no scientific advice is available. Penalties will be levied for overfishing of sensitive stocks - still to be defined - depending on how much each quota is exceeded. The new system comes into force from the start of 1997.

A REPORT was presented to ministers which suggests that fishermen must reduce their fishing effort even further because stocks are seriously depleted. The report, prepared by a group of experts under Hans Lassen of the Danish Institute for Fisheries Research, points in particular to North Sea cod, haddock, herring and mackerel, recommending a 40&percent; reduction in fishing effort for these stocks. But the report, part of the preparation for the next fleet reduction programme, advocates a progressive rather than abrupt approach.

THE meeting failed to make any progress on proposals for a ban on the use of drift-nets for catching tuna, swordfish and salmon. Only Spain and Greece wholeheartedly support a long-delayed proposal to ban the nets in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Baltic by the end of 1997. Italy, accused of using illegally long drift-nets in the Mediterranean, pledged it would obey the existing restriction on nets longer than 2.5 kilometres. The Commission said an inspection vessel would extend its patrols.

A QUALIFIED majority of countries agreed on reductions in duties on autonomous quotas for cod, shrimps and several other species, with Belgium, Ireland and France voting against. The import quotas are supposed to balance the interests of processors, mainly in Denmark and Portugal, against those of fishermen, primarily in France and Belgium. They will run from 1 April until 31 December.

MINISTERS also fixed a 150,000-tonne autonomous Union quota for Atlantic-Scando herring in the north-east Atlantic for 1996. The decision was taken after the failure of a recent meeting of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) to allocate the 1996 Total Allowable Catch of about two million tonnes. But ministers failed to agree on the division of a 27,000-tonne redfish quota in the NEAFC area. The Commission's proposal foresaw 20,501 tonnes for Germany, with the rest shared mainly between Portugal, France and Spain. This issue will be discussed again in June, along with proposals for a summer ban on Baltic Sea cod fishing and plans to extend an arrangement which allows Sweden to catch sprat in the Skagerrak and Kattegat to all other member states.