MS Lowri Evans, The Commission’s Director-General for fisheries and maritime affairs, announced during the Fisheries Committee hearing in the European Parliament July 22, that the Commission will, immediately after the Parliament’s summer break, propose to the Council and Parliament a multi-species management plan for fisheries in the Baltic Sea.
The Baltic Sea multispecies management plan will be the first of a series of new management plans under the new CFP that will ”put the meat on the bones of the reform”.
Earlier this summer FISH together with CCB released a briefing paper on what we consider important aspects to include in ecosystem-based multispecies management in the Baltic Sea. Where we highlight the need for a multispecies management to consider broader biological interactions and raise our concerns about the direction the discussions have had so far, where a strong focus have been on optimising overall catch volumes.
The details of a possible Baltic multispecies management plan have been discussed for over 3 years. And after initial wider consideration, it now looks as if the plan will cover three main stocks: eastern Baltic cod, central Baltic herring and sprat. Making the prospect a bit more manageable considering the challenges involved.