Category: Article

The Swedish Agency for Marine Water Management has reported suspected discarding of small shrimps to the Swedish Prosecution Authority.

The Council of Fisheries Ministers reached an agreement of fishing opportunities for deep sea stocks from. Although catches will be reduced for a number of deep sea stocks, the Council have chosen to not follow scientific advice by setting catch limits higher for 63% of the stocks.

New briefing series by the new economics forum identifies which countries and ministers who stand in the way for moving towards more fish, profits and jobs for European citizens. The first briefing in the series explores the countries and ministers around the Baltic Sea.

It is now two years since the Commission released its proposal for a revised deep sea access regime (COM(2012)371) in July 2012, and progress on this file has been exceptionally slow. The European Parliament adopted its position 10 months ago and the Italian Presidency announced that it was to start drafting a proposal for a Council position over the summer.

Fisheries and environmental experts and authorities from the Baltic region gathered for the first fisheries meeting after the modernisation of HELCOM. The work plan for the group was agreed upon and the group elected Marcin Rucinski as chair of the group. Main focus of the meeting was on the draft of the new HELCOM Recommendation on aquaculture.

European Commission released its assessment of Member States plans and measures to protect the European eel. The assessments concludes that the quality of reports from EU member states is too vague for any proper evaluation to be made, pointing to that additional measures may need to be considered

European Commission have launched their proposals on discard ban plans for several fisheries in European waters, including the Baltic Sea. The content of the plan is essentially in line with what earlier been proposed by the Baltic Member States through BALTFISH, and corresponds to what the Commission previously has indicated to be included in the ban. Most regrettably the Commission has chosen not include seal damaged fish as part of fish discarded in the Baltic fisheries, and thereby potentially opening up a considerable loophole in the management.

The Stockholm Environmental Law and Policy Centre (SELPC) and Baltic Ecosystem Adaptive Management (BEAM) hosted a transdisciplinary conference looking at how countries around the Baltic Sea can move towards an ecosystem-based approach for managing fisheries and eutrophication and how this is to be implemented in the binding laws and regulations.

The Marine Strategy Framework Directive Competence Centre is set up to help EU countries achieve ‘Good Environmental Status’ of their marine waters by 2020, the main aim of the MSFD which seeks to protect the fragile balance of marine ecosystems, upon which many economic and social activities such as fishing or tourism depend.

Baltic Sea, as the first region to implement the rationalized requirements of the new CFP, has by many been considered as a role model for the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy. Yesterday, these expectations were sadly not fulfilled when the Council decided for fishing opportunities in the Baltic Sea for 2015.