A washed-up fisheries policy

Next year the European Commission will publish proposals on how the European Union will share the burden of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, a policy that asks countries to incur short-term costs for the prospect of long-term gains. Optimists refer back to the European Council in March, when EU leaders made what they billed as "a historic, ambitious and important" deal to reduce greenhouse gases. Pessimists look to the nearest equivalent: the common fisheries policy.

Later this month will see the concluding act of the annual haggle over fish quotas when EU ministers meet at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council (17-20 December) to set total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas for North Atlantic waters. Quotas for the Baltic Sea and between the EU and Norway have already been decided.

The TAC and quota system is a predictable process. Scientists at the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) give their advice, the Commission makes weaker proposals and the final result, cooked up by the Council, is weaker still.

The TACS adopted by the Council are on average 42-57% higher than the ICES scientists’ recommendations. One EU source said that there are "always the same little games, because behind the politicians you have the fishermen".

Cod is likely to provide the biggest disagreement at this December Council. After years of gloomy headlines, many governments have seized on recent good news about cod stocks. In October, ICES announced an increase in young cod in the North Sea. These hopeful findings came with some caveats: the increase is only around half of the long-term average of the stock and ICES has not advised relaxing quotas, preferring to recommend a catch for 2008 of "less than 50% of 2006 catches".

Nevertheless, this glimmer of a payback has been enough for the fishing industry and the majority of governments to argue that it is time to loosen cod quotas and end the "sacrifices" imposed on fishermen.

The Commission has proposed a cut in cod quotas of 25% compared to last year.

But this is not as straightforward as it seems, because on 26 November the EU and Norway agreed to increase cod quotas by 11%. This precedent makes most member states fairly relaxed ahead of the December Council. A fisheries expert for the Danish government commended the deal and said that for Denmark, "the most interesting part [of fisheries negotiations] has already been concluded".

A spokeswoman for the UK said that the agreement with Norway represented "a good start" for the UK. Only Sweden expresses reservation about the EU-Norway deal. Robin Rosencranz, a fisheries expert in the Swedish government, said that his government agreed to it only on condition that other measures are introduced to reduce fishing effort. These must also be discussed at the December Council.

Several EU sources expect the UK to be the most difficult country at the December Fisheries Council meeting, with Denmark and the Netherlands closely behind. The UK government has said that it will press for "a modest increase" in cod quotas. Jonathan Shaw, the UK fisheries minister, argued that increasing the quotas would stop the problem of discards, that is, fishermen throwing good fish back into the sea in order to stick to their quota. Carol Phua, a policy officer at WWF, rejects this argument. She said that the answer was to reduce days at sea, rather than up quotas: "Fishermen are fishing for too long for the amount of quotas that they have," she said.

The role of countries that are not directly affected by December’s TACs and quotas constitutes an unpredictable element in the Council discussions. Poland has already agreed on quotas for its waters (a 5% cut for Baltic cod, a 15% cut for Baltic salmon), so it could press for quota reductions for western European fishing countries to ensure a level playing-field. But in past years negotiations at Council have not always followed this pattern. For now, Polish sources say that they back the Commission’s proposals and are prepared to live with their own quota cuts despite domestic opposition. "Even though it is not exactly within our interests…we should not breach the law," said one.

The clash between fishing and conservation interests looks set to remain in place for several years. Robin Rosencranz uses a neat contradiction to describe the result of a new Swedish policy to restrict cod bycatches. "The great benefit is that it doesn’t catch any cod and the great disadvantage is that it doesn’t catch any cod," he said. When it comes to TACS and quotas, somebody must lose out.

Commission proposals for 2008

(Species/Change in quotas in a range)

Herring: between 0% and -25%

Cod: -25%

Haddock: between +15% and -37%

Whiting: between -15% and -25%

Ling: between 0% and -13%

Next year the European Commission will publish proposals on how the European Union will share the burden of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, a policy that asks countries to incur short-term costs for the prospect of long-term gains. Optimists refer back to the European Council in March, when EU leaders made what they billed as "a historic, ambitious and important" deal to reduce greenhouse gases. Pessimists look to the nearest equivalent: the common fisheries policy.