After 10 months of negotiations, the European Parliament, Council and Commission reached an agreement late on Tuesday evening on the multiannual plan for the stocks of cod, herring and sprat in the Baltic Sea.
MEP Ulrike Rodust, S&D Group coordinator for the committee on fisheries and shadow rapporteur for the Baltic multiannual plan, welcomes the agreement on this first multiannual management plan under the new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which will serve as the blueprint for further plans.
Ulrike Rodust, S&D MEP and coordinator on Fisheries said:
"Despite the necessary compromises it is an important step towards the practical implementation of the CFP reform.
"CFP reform must not be watered down.
"Until now, fisheries ministers have regularly set highly excessive quotas which have led to detrimental effects on fish stocks. Fishermen have also suffered through lower yields and incomes. This cannot happen again in the future. The Council must now remain within safe limits when setting the annual total allowable catches. The European Parliament has also successfully pushed for the inclusion of a stricter safeguard measure that will apply if stocks risk falling below a critical level through other detrimental effects, such as viruses or changes in salinity levels.
"This new management plan brings us significantly closer to our goal of quickly restoring fish stocks, at least in the Baltic Sea. This was already agreed in the CFP reform and is now implemented by means of this plan. Healthy fish stocks are not only necessary for the purpose of an ecologically sustainable fisheries policy; they will also have a positive impact on the profits of fishermen. The introduction of the multiannual plan also makes it easier for the fishing industry to assess fishing opportunities. It allows for better planning and a reduction of adjustment costs."
