EN Official Journal of the European Union C 44/125

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council — amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008 of 18 December 2008 establishing a long-term plan for cod stocks and the fisheries exploiting these stocks’

COM(2012) 498 final

2013/C 44/22

Rapporteur working without a study group: Mr Brendan BURNS

On 1 October 2012 the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under Article 43(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on the

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council — amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008 of 18 December 2008 establishing a long-term plan for cod stocks and the fisheries exploiting these stocks

COM(2012) 498 final.

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 22 November 2012.

At its 485th plenary session, held on 12 and 13 December 2012 (meeting of 12 December), the European Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 131 votes to 1 with 2 abstentions.

1. Conclusion

1.1 The EESC welcomes this proposal. A small number of, nevertheless important, concerns remain outstanding. The immediate priority is to see the early adoption of the new regulation.

2. Introduction

2.1 The review of the Long Term Plan for Cod (1) is a fundamentally important issue not just for the wellbeing of the subject stocks, but also because it is the source of effort control (days at sea) for several fleets. It includes annual automatic reductions, under certain biological conditions, of both effort and total allowable catch (TAC). These reductions occur whether or not the stock is improving, coming into play if the improvement is not strictly in accordance with the conditions laid down in the plan. The reductions in effort have been extremely severe: using the Scottish whitefish fleet as an example, available days at sea per vessel is set to fall by 2014 to 50 % of the level in 2011. Whereas effort reductions are aimed at commensurate reduction in cod mortality, the halving of time at sea means a halving of all fishing activity.

3. Background

3.1 An initial Cod Recovery Plan came into force in early 2004 (2), followed at the start of 2009 by the current Long Term Plan for Cod. Aimed at reduced fishing mortality, the management instruments in the plans have been reductions in TAC (measured as landings) and, most importantly in the current plan, automatic year-on-year reductions in effort. Using again the example above, the effects across the Scottish fleet of the measures aimed at cod recovery have been profound. In particular, the auto-reduction of effort under the terms of the plan has been very damaging economically while not returning the predicted benefit to the stock.

3.2 In accordance with its own Article 34, the current plan should have been reviewed ‘at the latest in the third year of application’. The review underway is therefore late. After some confusing messages from the Commissioner at the end of 2012, it is now the declared intention of the Commission to propose a multi-species, multi-annual plan to replace the Cod Plan. This will clearly take some time, especially since the underpinning science is not yet available. However, there is a solid consensus now in the fishing Member States that further auto-reductions of effort are not acceptable.

3.3 Since there will be no full-scale plan revision in the near future, the Commission have made the subject proposal for a short-term change. A complication in this process is the necessity to align as quickly as possible the current plan to the TFEU, because the Council no longer has the legal power to alone enact processes within the plan. This will produce legal difficulties in the path of any immediate action by the Council by the end of 2012 to mitigate the effects of excessive effort reduction.

4. Scientific factors

4.1 The Cod Plan was considered formally by the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) and the STECF (Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries) in 2011. Both the NS (North Sea) and NWW (North Western Waters) RACs contributed to that process and the following headlines are agreed by the scientific bodies and the RACs: — The Cod Plan is not delivering its primary objective of reduced Fishing Mortality (F) on cod. — The STECF agrees with the industry view that F should not be expected to follow trends in effort in a linear fashion. — A full analytical assessment is available only for the North Sea. For the West of Scotland there is an assessment, but it is only indicative of trends. In the North Sea, F has indeed declined and the stock Spawning Biomass (Β) increased, but not at the rate demanded in the plan. It should be noted that the 2004 Cod Recovery Plan has a target F that is now being achieved, and that it anticipated a 10 year recovery period. — For the West of Scotland, despite a most significant decline in effort levels, total F remains high. It is concluded that other factors are involved including an underestimation of predation. — Noting that all formal stock assessment has a time lag due to its own process, and that the judgement of fishermen involved generally precedes accurately the output, cod recovery is assessed in reality to be at a much more advanced stage than advice suggests.

5. General comments

5.1 In general, the proposal is welcomed. The amendments to the current plan should, if properly implemented, open the way to achievement of the objectives and avoidance of further economic damage for no biological benefit.

6. Specific comments

6.1 Base lines and uptake

6.1.1 Changes to Article 4 are aimed at closing the unintended possibility for Member States to deploy higher levels of effort than the plan was meant to allow simply by changing the methods used for the calculation of effort when establishing the baselines and when calculating usage.

6.1.2 The EESC, without conceding its view that effort control has proven to be a blunt and largely ineffectual instrument, sees reasonable and logical to require Member States to calculate effort usage on a consistent basis to that used to establish effort baselines.

6.2 Data deficient stocks

6.2.1 In Article 9 (a procedure for TAC setting in the absence of the necessary information to apply Article 7 or 8), instead of automatic reductions of 25 % it is proposed to take a case-by-case (and therefore a more flexible) approach though remaining firmly based on available scientific advice.

6.2.2 The scope for the Council to apply reductions in effort and TACs less than the automatic 25 % for stocks required under the current plan, in cases where analytical assessments are not available, is a wise and proportionate proposal, which will allow the Council to apply a case-by-case approach in light of the most comprehensive scientific advice available.

6.3 Exemptions for vessels catching negligible amounts of cod

6.3.1 The former Article 11 is split into Article 11, Article 11a and 11b. Instead of exempting groups of vessels specified by each Member State, exemptions are now based on criteria that would be generally applicable for any vessels that meet them, regardless of the Member State to which they belong. The amended Article also avoids the need for constant adjustments of the baseline by the Council.

6.3.2 The administrative hurdles required to obtain exemptions for vessels catching negligible amounts of cod have been disproportionate and have undermined the intention of this provision. The EESC therefore welcomes this streamlining of the arrangements for granting exemptions.

6.3.3 Some clarification is required on how the new exemptions would work in relation to the potential overlap between gear selectivity, spatial distribution of catches and depth. For example, some gears operating in high cod-density areas catch very low amounts of cod; equally, some gears operating in relatively low cod-density areas can catch substantial amounts of cod.

6.3.4 The RACs should be involved in determining the criteria used to define cod dense areas and how the new approach would be applied in practice.

6.3.5 Transitional measures will ensure that vessels groups already excluded will be subject to the criteria in force at the time of exclusion.

6.3.6 It makes sense to maintain continuity where groups of vessels have already met existing exemption criteria.

6.4 Fully Documented Fisheries (FDF) effort exemption

6.4.1 A new Article 11c is introduced. Vessels involved in the fully documented fishery trials, where all catches are counted against quota, are exempted from the fishing effort regime.

6.4.2 The exemption of those vessels which can provide fully documented catches from the effort regime is wholly logical, as their contribution to cod mortality is fully recorded and within the authorised quota. There is therefore no rationale behind their continued inclusion. However, the EESC fails to understand the reasoning behind the prohibition on transfers of quota to and from these vessels. The most salient point is that it can be demonstrated that, since the introduction of FDF, trial discards have been substantially reduced in the North Sea. At worst, the EESC considers that this poorly thought through measure would prevent vessels from joining catch quota trials and would therefore be entirely counterproductive. The EESC thinks that further information from the Member States and discussion is required to clarify the position but in general quota management is a Member State area of competence and should remain so.

6.5 Flexibility in setting TACs and effort levels

6.5.1 In Article 12(4), the changes are made on the same grounds as for Article 9.

6.5.2 A new paragraph 6 is introduced in Article 12. This paragraph foresees the possibility for the Council to decide not to apply further fishing effort reductions, once the fishing-effort ceiling has been reduced for four consecutive years.

6.5.3 The permissive authority to allow the Council to freeze the effort reductions required under the plan is vital to avoid serious and irreversible socioeconomic damage to fishing businesses and fishing communities. Member States and the RACs as well as the STECF have drawn attention to the blunt, disproportionate of this approach and the frequently counterproductive consequences that have resulted. The most salient consequence of this new flexibility will be an anticipated reduction in discards.

6.6 Catch composition management period

6.6.1 In Article 13, a rewording is made in order to remove differences in interpretation between language versions. It is now made clear that the condition that cod catch are less than 5 % of the total refers to the catch composition over the management period, not per trip.

6.6.2 Against the background of the ongoing CFP reform and a possible obligation to land all catches, the proposed changes that would have the effect of reducing discards of mature cod are welcome. The flexibility to meet the 5 % catch composition requirements across the whole management period should help in this regard.

6.7 Discard reduction

6.7.1 In Article 14, the Member State obligation to address the discard issue is strengthened since it is not the case under the current ruling, and the level of control and monitoring is specified according to risk based management.

6.7.2 The EESC is strongly of the view that the future of rebuilding cod stocks lies in various kinds of cod avoidance by fishing vessels and in aligning economic incentives in the industry with management objectives. To a large extent, cod avoidance initiatives overlap with discard reduction. Within the context of the imbalance between TACs for North Sea cod and the actual abundance of the grounds, cod avoidance through real time closures, catch quotas, selective gears, seasonal and temporal avoidance have been the main means through which catching pressure on cod has been reduced. Monitoring and a risk-based approach will doubtless reflect this pattern.

Brussels, 12 December 2012. The President of the European Economic and Social Committee Staffan NILSSON

(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008, OJ L 348, 24.12.2008, p. 20–33.

(2) Council Regulation (EC) No 423/2004, OJ L 70, 9.3.2004, p. 8–11.