UK secures important breakthrough on management of fish stocks
皇冠体育app European Commission today agreed that fishing quotas will not be subject to an automatic cut by the EU if data about individual stocks is insufficient.
Addressing the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg today, Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki said that she had dropped plans to impose an automatic cut of 25 per cent if data was not considered to be reliable. She added that the quota would not automatically default to the previous year鈥檚 quota and would instead be decided on a case by case basis.
Speaking from Luxembourg, UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said:
鈥淚 spoke to Commissioner Damanaki before the council meeting this morning and I鈥檓 pleased to see some realism in the decisions being made here. Just because the data on a stock doesn鈥檛 give the full picture, that doesn鈥檛 mean slashing the amount which you鈥檙e allowed to catch by a quarter is the right response.
鈥溁使谔逵齛pp UK fully supports the Commission鈥檚 ambitions to ensure that fish stocks are sustainable in the long term. But we can鈥檛 support proposals which have no basis in science and could risk increasing discards from otherwise healthy stocks.鈥�
Richard Benyon is representing the interests of all UK fishermen at the Council meeting in Luxembourg today, where issues being discussed include the annual negotiations with Norway to manage Total Allowable Catch in the North Sea.