EC announces cuts in fishing quotas for 2012
27 August 2012
The EC has announced that fishing quotas for 2012 will be further reduced for those member states that exceeded their quotas in recent years: the reductions will be increased by 50% for member states that have repeatedly overfished the same stock between 2009 and 2011.
With this measure, the Commission feels that it can ‘immediately address the damage done to the stocks overfished in the previous years and ensure a sustainable use by all member states of a common fishing resource’. The Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries said: ‘Nobody should harbour illusions that overfishing will be tolerated.’
If a Member State has no quotas available for the overfished stock concerned, the deductions can be made from its quotas available for other stocks in the same region. Lithuania, the UK, Spain, Portugal will be amongst the affected member states.
A few days later, Spain and the EC announced that they had agreed to implement an action plan to strengthen the registration and monitoring of catches ‘to ensure compliance with the quotas allocated to Spain’.
The action plan is building on measures that the Spanish ministry in charge of fisheries is already implementing this year, such as the Fisheries Information System. The Spanish authorities ‘will also work on creating a culture of compliance among fishermen’.
The EC feels that this will benefit the fishing sector: ‘thanks to rigorous enforcement of quotas, the stocks will be more abundant and all fishermen will enjoy a fair and equal access to fisheries resources’.
Editorial comment
Setting up total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas for managing fisheries in a sustainable way – as is often proposed for ACP fisheries, including those where foreign fleets operate – is not a panacea, and compliance is a major problem. It is not only the declared catches that reveal that quotas have repeatedly been exceeded by many EU countries, but fixation of quotas also led to important amounts of undeclared catches. Taking strong measures, such as reducing quotas for those who have overfished, is a key ingredient for the system to work. Another key ingredient is creating a culture of compliance among the fishermen – by promoting co-management, improving systems for registration of catches, etc. – so that all catches are declared. Both should be built into any TACs and quota system. This should also be considered by ACP countries which may choose such a system for managing some of their own fisheries.
