Proposal for a Council Regulation fixing for 2015 and 2016 the fishing opportunities for Union fishing vessels for certain deep-sea fish stocks

Deep-sea stocks are fish stocks caught in waters beyond the main fishing grounds of continental shelves. They are distributed on the continental slopes or associated with seamounts. Most of these species are slow-growing and long-lived, which makes them particularly vulnerable to fishing activity. Another imporant element in a deep-sea species' vulnerability to fishing is whether it can be targeted in local aggregations, particularly at the time of spawning. This is the case for orange roughy, blue ling and alfonsinos.

As for all wild fish stocks, leaving deep-sea fisheries unrestricted leads to a race by fishing undertakings to take possession of a free resource, without having sufficient regard to the sustainable level of exploitation. This has been clearly the case for some deep-sea species before the European Union started regulating these stocks in 2003. For example, the valuable stocks of orange roughy in North-Western waters and red seabream in the Bay of Biscay are now depleted. Therefore, limiting the fishing activity is a necessary public intervention in order to prevent the erosion of income for fishermen, to develop exploitation towards higher long-term yields, and to reduce the impact on the ecosystem and the food web as a consequence of sudden reductions in the size of certain fish populations. In the case of deep-sea species, public intervention is of particular importance due to the fact that the recovery from depletion might take a very long time or might even fail.

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) provides a thorough review of the biological status of deep sea stocks every two years. The latest ICES advice was published in May 2014.

This proposal for fixing fishing opportunities is based on the further review undertaken by the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) in June 2014, following the work of ICES. Advice from both ICES and STECF indicates that most deep-sea stocks are still harvested unsustainably and that fishing opportunities for those stocks, in order to assure their sustainability, should be further reduced until the evolution of the stocks shows a positive trend. This provides the groundwork for fixing fishing opportunities for deep sea stocks in accordance with the principle embodied in Article 3(c) of the Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, whereby decision-making under the Common Fisheries Policy must be guided, among others, on scientific advice.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)613: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:613:FIN

ESO: Background information: Commission proposes moderate decrease in deep-sea fishing opportunities 2015-2016 to protect vulnerable species http://www.europeansources.info/record/press-release-commission-proposes-moderate-decrease-in-deep-sea-fishing-opportunities-2015-2016-to-protect-vulnerable-species/

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