A Greek former freedom fighter and political prisoner, tortured by the Junta in the 1970s, presently a socialist member of the Greek Parliament, has been nominated as the next EU Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Maria Damanaki, 57, has led a career not lacking in controversy: she was elected to the Greek Parliament for … Continued
With more than one third of the total worth of US catches in 2008, Alaska remained the nation’s dominating fishing state, a position held since 1975. According to statistics from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Alaskan fishermen landed harvests worth 1.7 billion dollars last year, out of 4.4 billions for the Unites States as … Continued
At the recent FAO conference in Madagascar, the new international port state agreement was adopted and is now open for signatures. The “Binding International Agreement on Port State Control Measures to Combat, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing” must be ratified by twenty five states for it to enter in to force. In … Continued
As of 1 January 2010, the Baltic 21 inter-state organisation will become formally integrated into a similar network grouping, the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), and its secretariat will be incorporated into that of the CBSS. Baltic 21 was initiated by the prime ministers of the Baltic Sea countries in 1996 as a … Continued
Malta’s prime minister has nominated the country’s social policy minister for the next Commission, meaning there will be a new Fisheries Commissioner after Joe Borg. As a concession to Ireland before that country’s referendums on the Lisbon Treaty, each member nation was allowed one member in the Commission. Joe Borg, once the foreign minister who … Continued
The STECF, an expert body under the EU Commission, has sharply rejected an official assessment of the social and economic impacts of a future management plan for pelagic fisheries in the Baltic Sea, as lacking in both method and transparency. The Commission has started preparations for a management plan for the pelagic stocks in the … Continued
An Asian carp that escaped American fish farms into the Mississippi in the 1990s now threatens the ecosystems of the Great Lakes, the world’s biggest freshwater lake system. The bighead and silver carps, consuming up to 40 percent of their body weight daily in plankton – starving out other less aggressive species – can considerably … Continued
The EU Fisheries Ministers failed to reach any agreement on a new technical measures regulation at their November meeting, and a visibly subdued Swedish Minister Eskil Erlandsson, the present Council President, said “it is now for Spain to take over … this very pressing issue”. Spain, the Union’s dominating fishing power, will lead the Council’s … Continued
The EU Council’s October decision to raise the 2010 TACs for the Baltic cod, has now been followed by a move by German fishermen to have their fisheries in both Baltic stocks MSC certified. The eastern and western stocks have both dramatically declined since the 1980s, but the much bigger Eastern stock has been showing … Continued
In an article ahead of Friday’s EU Fisheries Council meeting, the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers calls the current Union fisheries regime a “dismal failure”. Halldor Asgrimsson, a former Prime Minister of Iceland, added that Nordic management systems in that field could serve as a “source of inspiration” for the upcoming reform … Continued