EU countries call for derogations on rules on small by-catches in Baltic Sea

6 months ago 26

In a meeting of EU agriculture and fisheries ministers, member states supported the demand from Latvia and Lithuania to loosen some requirements of the fishing control rules, which only entered into force on 9 January.

A few months after adopting the new regulation on fisheries control, Latvia and Lithuania are proposing to amend Article 14 on by-catches because the obligations lead to undeserved penalties, according to the ministers’ meeting in the Agrifish Council on 29 April.

According to the two countries, the rules for recording small by-catches are too strict. The biggest EU fishing countries backed them while the Commission is so far resisting demands to amend the text.

For the EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, who stepped in for his colleague in charge of fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, “to respond to this request, we would have to amend the regulation, which has only just been revised after five years of intensive and complicated discussions”.

When fishing for herring or sprat in the Baltic Sea, many common species that are not commercially exploited, such as the three-spined stickleback, the four-horned sculpin, the smelt, the pout, or the round goby, are caught accidentally.

The new fisheries control regulations, in force since 9 January, require all by-catch species caught to be declared on board, with a tolerated margin of error of 10% for each species.

This means that a vessel can incorrectly declare up to 10% of the weight of each species.

But for Latvian Fisheries Minister Armands Krauze, the authorised margin of tolerance (MOT) is almost impossible to respect for small by-catches, as they are difficult to assess visually.

According to Lithuanian representative Rasa Žemaitytė, the likelihood of committing an offence is very high. “The requirements are disproportionate, at a time when our fishermen are struggling to survive,” she insisted.

Commission reluctant

The request was supported by several member states, particularly the fishing powers. For Danish representative Jesper Wulff Pedersen, a derogation is needed to make the regulation “possible to comply with”.

Italy’s delegation denounced the high risk of violating the regulation, while France called for a “pragmatic and realistic” implementation of the text.

Conversly, NGOs defended tighter controls on catch declarations. In a press release, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) called for “errors to be corrected,” and for the EU to monitor ports, denouncing the practice of using “ports of convenience,” where authorities carry out “lax controls”.

Member states called for the new Regulation to be amended or for “provisions to be included” in secondary legislation, such as an “implementing act”. Wojciechowski warned that “the Commission cannot do just anything, there are limits to the implementing act”.

In the Commissioner’s view, there are already provisions in the regulation for deviating from the imposed margins of 10% when the quantities of fish are negligible. For example, when by-catches represent less than 2% of the total, the margin of error is 200 kg.

If the problem is not addressed, “all fishermen will be in breach,” insisted Latvian Fisheries Minister Armands Krauze, pointing out that these aspects of the regulation will come into force in July.