The Commissioner’s Press Statement:
Today the Council reached an agreement on the fishing opportunities in the Baltic Sea for 2024, based on the Commission’s proposal of earlier this year.
Today’s decision was not taken easily, nor lightly, but we have a responsibility to set the fishing opportunities at levels that can help the stocks recover to the benefit of our fishers and their communities.
Stock recovery also needs, however, resolute action in tackling the dire environmental situation in the Baltic Sea as a whole.
There are many environmental challenges stemming from issues such as eutrophication and rising sea temperatures, caused by climate change. Already in September, together with the Ministers of the Member States around the Baltic Sea, we committed during the second ‘Our Baltic’ conference to address these issues and strengthen our actions to improve the environmental status of the Baltic Sea.
The current bad environmental status has had on impact on fisheries. The comprehensive approach we have been pursuing remains valid and more necessary than ever.
Let me start by the decisions as regards Bothnian and central herring.
Science tells us that even if we do not fish these stocks at all, the probability of them to be above the safe biological levels is still below 95%, and as low as 78% for central herring.
The Council has decided to allow fisheries on central Baltic herring and Bothnian herring, setting the TAC at low levels – respectively at – 43% and -31% on last year’s TAC, together with remedial measures aimed at rebuilding those stocks.
On Riga herring the Commission’s proposal followed the ICES advice, which factored in migrating central herring to the Gulf of Riga combined with a closure of targeted fishing for the central herring. However, since the Council decision was to allow targeted fisheries on central Baltic herring, for Gulf of Riga we now have a – 17% TAC decrease.
For western and eastern cod and western herring, the Council has decided to maintain bycatch TACs.
The Council has followed the Commission proposal on the 3 TACs : salmon in the Gulf of Finland (+7%) salmon in the main basin (-15%), and plaice (rollover).
For sprat we proposed a -23% reduction as it is linked with the bycatch of herring. The Council’s decision is to allow healthy sprat fisheries to continue with a 10% TAC reduction.
The decisions taken at this Council were difficult, but necessary so that the Baltic Sea can remain a source of livelihood for local communities today and tomorrow.
On another subject, Ministers also discussed the preparation of the ICCAT annual meeting. I want to thank everyone for their very valuable input. On this basis, we will now develop the EU positions.
Finally, I would like to thank the Spanish Presidency and Member States for their constructive cooperation even in the most difficult conditions.