Des quotas de pêche ajustés dans l’UE

Hailing a deal to allow new fishing trials in a bid to improve scientific evidence on fish stock conservation and to reduce discards, UK Fisheries Minister Huw Irranca-Davies said he had pushed for the agreement "so that we can match the science with what actually happens at sea". 

"Sound science is essential in helping to conserve fish stocks while also allowing the industry to thrive. I know the industry is fully behind these trials and I look forward to working with them as they progress," he added.

Commenting on the outcome of the Council as a whole, Irranca-Davies said "although we have not secured a perfect-world agreement on everything […], we have won […] important concessions [on quotas] based on sound arguments to back our position". 

Describing the ministers' decision to slash quotas as "a slap in the face with a wet fish" for Scottish fishermen, UK Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, who sits on the European Parliament's fisheries committee, said "the cold reality is that UK fishermen are facing even tougher times next year" as a result of the ministers' decisions. 

"Pleas from the fishermen to be allowed to increase their catches have fallen on deaf ears," Stevenson said, complaining that "inadequate science, a harsh regulatory regime, poor financial rewards and dangerous working conditions – the hallmark of fifty years of the Common Fisheries Policy – have rendered the job almost untenable". 

WWF, an environmental NGO, welcomed ministers' decision to introduce a new system of catch quotas with a view to reducing fish waste in the North Sea, describing the development as "an effective step in the direction of finally solving the problem of discards and making governments and industry responsible for the way they manage their fisheries". 

"At the advent of a three-and-a-half year debate on the Common Fisheries Policy reform, yesterday's actions show that some governments and industries are ready to take decisions that are in the long-term interests of a sustainable and profitable fisheries sector," said Aaron McLoughlin, head of the European Marine Programme at WWF's European Policy Office. 

But Xavier Pastor, executive director for Europe at Oceana, another NGO, commented after yesterday's meeting that "the type of management being developed maintains stocks in a state of permanent over-exploitation". 

Claiming that "the new fisheries management objective is clearly sustainable overexploitation," Pastor warned "stocks are so low that the catch is 20 times lower than 10 years ago". 

Meanwhile, José Rodríguez, a marine scientist at Oceana, slammed ministers' decision to open the anchovy fishery in the Bay of Biscay. "I don't know where the politicians who have been fighting to open [it] will be in a few years. Unfortunately, we don't know where the fishermen will be either. We can be certain, though, that the anchovy as we knew it a few years ago will no longer be there," he said. 

Describing the Council's decision to end all fishing for porbeagle sharks and reduce by 90% fishing quotas for spurdog as "a solid performance on the first big test of the new EU Action Plan for Sharks," Sonja Fordham, EU shark policy director for the Pew Environment Group and the Shark Alliance, said "ministers have acted in line with the Plan's pledge to follow scientific advice and a precautionary approach when setting fishing limits for inherently vulnerable sharks". 

"Ending fisheries for critically endangered porbeagle and spurdog will allow European populations to recover while enhancing the EU's ability to promote conservation of the species on a global scale," said Fordham.