The EU’s Fisheries Commissioner has warned EU governments that a speedy resolution is needed to resolve the deadlock over reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), during a meeting of the EU Fisheries Council on 22 April 2013.
There is currently a row between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament over the issues of discards, which sees edible but unwanted dead fish thrown back in the sea.
MEPs want a full discard ban on all fish stocks by 2015, but the Council has backed a phased discard ban that would not be completed until 2017.
Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki – who broadly backs the parliament’s stance – warned that the member states were “running out of choices” and that “postponing the issues will not be of good to anybody”.
The chair of the Fisheries Council, Ireland’s Simon Coveney, said everyone agreed there needed to be new rules on the size and capacity of fishing fleets, but that “what has to be worked out is the mechanism to get us there”.
He insisted ministers were working towards securing a deal by the May meeting of the Fisheries Council, and said there were already “signals on areas where we can find compromise”.
BBC © 2013