Announcing plans to dismantle the present Board of Fisheries, the Swedish Government has appointed an inquiry group to see which parts to transfer to a new joint Marine Agency to be formed by 2011.
The new agency will work under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment. Some of the functions of the present Board, including fisheries management and control, will remain under the Ministry of Agriculture, the future organisation of which will be studied by the inquiry.
Since its days of European glory in the 17th Century, Sweden has had a system where many functions that are in most other countries dealt with within the ministries, here carried out by government agencies, formally independent and working under general guidelines from the ministry.
The inquiry was instructed to leave its report by February 1, next year, and the new Marine Agency is scheduled to be formed by January 1, 2011.