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WITH the approach of the annual autumn negotiations to decide fish catch quotas in EU waters, there are signs of a general improvement in the state of stocks in the North East Atlantic, although differences of opinion still exist.
This was the message to emerge from the yearly seminar organised in Brussels by the European Commission as a sort of precursor the tough talking that lies ahead and usually ends with a nail biting settlement shortly before Christmas.
The NFFO, which was represented at the meeting, said the event was useful as a means of assessing the Commission’s priorities, reviewing the main features of this year’s scientific advice and assessing the Commission’s own “Communication” on how it intends to approach its proposal for the TACs and Quotas Regulation.
It also provided an opportunity for the regional advisory councils (RACs) to raise issues and concerns for the Commission. The NFFO was present as part of the RAC delegations.
A presentation to the meeting by a senior ICES scientist drew attention to:-
The general improvement in the stocks in the North East Atlantic
The fact that fishing mortality on most stocks outside the Mediterranean had been substantially reduced
The progress that has been made in dealing with providing advice for data limited stocks. Where ICES is unable to provide a full quantitative assessment a new approach, using the varying degrees of information available stock by stock, had been developed after much hard work. This work was not yet complete but even now offered the prospect of a much improved approach to data limited stocks.
Although still based on limited data, and accepting that there are wide differences between fleet segments, the meeting was advised economic performance of the EU fleets in 2011 had moved from loss to a small profit.
The federation said that one of the more contentious areas of discussion focused on to whether a management plan should be followed irrespective of the consequences.
The RACs reaffirmed their support for management plans; drew attention to the benefits of establishing long term objectives and working steadily towards their achievement; described the ongoing work in the RACs on the development of advice on multi-annual management plans; and agreed with the need for discipline in following a plan once its terms have been agreed.
However, they made the important point that when a plan had been evaluated and found to be fundamentally flawed, and when the date for its review and revision had been passed, the plan should not be followed blindly, with disregard for the consequences. The EU Cod Plan and EU/Norway harvest control rules, if followed in 2013, will lead to TAC and effort reductions of 20 per cent to 25 per cent The Plan has effect in the North Sea, West of Scotland, Irish Sea and Eastern Channel. A surge in discards will be the inevitable consequence, it added.
"The Commission provocatively suggested that the regional councils were being “inconsistent” in arguing that management plans required discipline but then advocating a departure from them.
"The RACs made the case for an intelligent approach that takes into account the to the consequences of following a flawed plan – namely increased discards at a time when the CFP is supposed to be moving towards the elimination of discards."
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