The proposed multiannual plan for the Baltic Sea was discussed in a public exchange of view at yesterday’s Council meeting. During the meeting the Commission also took the time to brief the Council. The proposed multiannual plan includes stocks of cod, herring and sprat (14028/14).
The proposal was generally welcomed by Member States, who clearly pointing out that the Baltic Sea multiannual plan will act as a test case for a “new generation of multiannual management plans” for other EU waters. The multiannual plan is a step towards ensuring that fish stocks are to be exploited in a sustainable way in accordance with the principles of maximum sustainable yield (MSY). There are however, still issues with the current scientific advice, as the current exploitation rates for some of the stocks are not consistent with achieving MSY. Issues remains to be resolved regarding fishing mortality within the plan as these currently are being presented as ranges (+/- 10 %) within the plan. With the F ranges for the eastern and western cod stocks deviate considerably (0.41-0.51 and 0.23-0.29, respectively) in the Commissions latest proposal.
The multiannual plan aims to replace the existing management plan for the Baltic Sea cod stocks, which has been in place since 2007, with a multispecies approach as of the inclusion of herring and sprat stocks into the plan. As said, the plan is based on a multispecies approach – although as it stands at the moment it could be questioned if it really is a multispecies approach.
The proposal belongs to a new generation of multiannual management plans designed on the basis of principles agreed jointly between the Council and the European Parliament, following the report on the subject by the inter-institutional Task Force. The Task Force was created to resolve an interinstitutional disagreement on the allocation of responsibilities between the Council and the European Parliament under article 43 of the Lisbon Treaty. The legal basis and/or the details of the acts delegated to the Commission are still to be discussed.