The Committee on Fisheries adopted the recommendation
for a second reading contained in the report by Ulrike RODUST
(S&D, DE) and approved the Council position at first reading
with a view to the adoption of a regulation of the European
Parliament and of the Council on the Common Fisheries Policy,
amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1954/2003 and (EC) No 1224/2009
and repealing Council Regulations (EC) No 2371/2002, (EC) No
639/2004 and Council Decision (EC) No 2004/585.
Following its adoption of the position in
Parliament’s first reading in plenary on 6 February 2013,
informal negotiations started with the Irish Presidency with view
to reaching an early second reading agreement. After seven rounds
of trialogue, Parliament’s and Council’s negotiating team
reached agreement on the file on 30 May 2013. As Council’s
first reading position is in conformity with the agreement reached
in the trilogues, the report recommends that Parliament accept it
without further amendments.
The main elements of the compromise are as
follows:
- overfishing must be stopped, if possible by 2015, so
that fish stocks can start to recover. It is made clear that
postponing this to a later date (up to 2020 at the latest) can only
be permitted if the economic and social sustainability of the
fishing fleets involved is seriously jeopardized;
- the principle of maximum sustainable yield should not
merely have the status of a political declaration of intent but
should be genuinely legally binding on all future
decisions;
- it is clear that the objective of all these measures
is to allow stocks to grow not just to a sustainable level but
beyond. Parliament has thus succeeded in creating a safety margin
for the environment;
- agreement was also reached on the proposed requirement
that all catches should be landed (the ‘discard
ban’).
- exemptions to the discard ban may be adopted (up to 5%
of all catches, 7% for a transitional period). Parliament
successfully argued that exemptions should only be adopted where it
is very hard for the fishermen concerned to fish more selectively,
or where the processing of by-catches would entail
disproportionately high costs.
- with regard to the issue of fleet overcapacity, the
compromise text lays down the principle that Member States must
ensure that their catch capacities are in line with resources.
Parliament obtained the inclusion of a provision whereby Member
States have to examine their fleets’ catch capacities every
year in accordance with criteria set by the Commission;
- as part of the reform, preparations were also made for
the further decentralisation (‘regionalisation’) of
decision-making. The Advisory Councils will have a more balanced
membership in future, with 40% of their members being
representatives from outside the fisheries sector (e.g. from
NGOs);
- the compromise text also stipulates that the EU
must avoid contributing to overfishing in foreign
waters;
- the new basic regulation contains a decision in
principle that appropriations from EU fisheries funds may only be
disbursed if the rules of the common fisheries policy are complied
with;
- lastly, the inclusion of ‘access criteria’
was a success for the negotiating team. In future the Member States
will have to distribute catch quotas among their fishermen in
accordance with objective and transparent criteria.