The PelAC has written to the European Commission with its advice on 2024 fishing opportunities
The Pelagic Advisory Council (PelAC) has issued its comment on the “Communication from the Commission towards more sustainable fishing in the EU: state of play and orientations for 2024” and to provide recommendations on Total Allowable Catches (TACs) in 2024 for stocks under its remit.
In its recommendations on 2024 fishing opportunities, PelAC looks at several areas including the Landing Obligation, the Economic Performance of the EU fleet, Management of Shared Stocks, Long-term Management Strategies, Ecosystem-approach to fisheries management, the Role of Science, Marine Areas and TAC Proposals for 2024.
On the issue of the Landing Obligation, PelAC says that it welcomes the recent adoption of new control regulations stating that traditional monitoring techniques which the Commission was relying upon are insufficient.
The PelAC says it will examine the new regulation in detail and determine what new approaches would be best fitted to monitor the compliance with the landing obligation of pelagic fisheries.
It says, “In this regard, the PelAC feels it is important to discuss with EFCA the outcomes of evaluation of compliance reports with the landing obligation as they become available. The PelAC is anxious to avoid repeating the same situation as in 2020, when EFCA only published an Executive Summary of the report findings on the mackerel fishery. The PelAC calls on Commission support the PelAC in ensuring the relevant High Level Groups either publish future reports in full, or not at all. The PelAC also asks Commission support to ensure dialogue with EFCA and the PelAC is maintained on outcomes of evaluation of compliance reports with the landing obligation.”
On the Economic Performance of the EU Fleet, PelAc again highlighted to the Commission that the economic orientations built on economic data that are two years behind, thus having a two-year time lag with respect to the year for which scientific advice is given. The PelAC states that it recognises that in this year’s communication, the two-year time lag is partially resolved as an outlook is provided for 2023. However, since the scientific advice is given for 2024, the PelAC continues to underline the importance of ensuring better alignment between the scientific advice data and future projections by STECF for the economic analysis of the fleet.
It states, “The Communication mentions that the peak in fuel price reached in summer 2022, which followed the earlier interruption due to the COVID-19 outbreak and the market disruption caused by Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, resulted in the EU fishing fleet making an overall loss for the first time since 2008. While prices have gradually fallen to €0.8 – 0.9 per litre in the first quarter of 2023, the Communication states: “current fuel prices, which remain 70% higher than 2021 prices, would generate very small to no net profit on average in 2023”. The PelAC notes a substantial change in the value of the break-even point for fuel to €1.17 per litre of fuel as estimated in last year’s STECF Annual Economic Report which has not been changed – a very steep increase from €0.60 per litre from the Commission’s estimation in 2022 for a break-even fuel price of €0.6- 0.7 per litre, as communicated in its response to a letter from EAPO last year, used as the standard within the EU. Therefore, the PelAC requests that the STECF report is updated with this revised figure as published by the Commission last year as it makes a significant difference on the profitability of the fleet.”
On the Management of Shares Stocks, the PelAC said it remains concerned about the current situation in the Northeast Atlantic in the absence of sharing arrangements between Coastal States for the management of widely distributed stocks. It says that while the advisory council recognises the work done by the Commission to resolve the situation, it believes that if an agreement is not reached, the Commission should be prepared to take measures saying:
“The Commission should take immediate action to stop unilateral quota’s which exceed scientific advice and jeopardizes the sustainable management of shared stocks. This is even more important as again for 2023 Norway and the Faroe Islands have continued to operate on the basis of excessive, unjustified unilaterally set quotas, leading to further overfishing and putting the sustainability of the mackerel stock in question.”
The PelAC also highlighted concerns about how the Commission will accommodate zero catch options within bilateral agreements with the UK moving forward and asked for clarity on this point.
On Long-term Management Strategies (LTMS), the PelAC states that it underlines the importance of establishing such strategies for fish stocks and notes it has a strong track record of contributing to the development of such plans for the stocks under its remit since its inception. The PelAC says it recognises that in the Communication, the Commission aspires to move to a multiannual TAC system and invites Member States to propose lists of priority EU-only stocks for which 2-year TACs are recommended. The PelAC encourages these developments.
Skipping forward through Ecosystem-approach to fisheries management, the Role of Science, Make marine areas and EU fisheries fit for future to TAC proposals for 2024, the PelAC noted that it is concerned with the consistent catches being made in excess of ICES advice for total allowable catches (TACs) as is the case for Northeast Atlantic mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring, and the fact that this overshoot is currently not considered in the evaluation that generates the FMSY reference point or the long-term management strategy (LTMS) that are currently in place.
PelAc advises that one way this issue can be addressed is to request to ICES that future LTMS evaluations requests that utilize management strategy evaluation (MSE) include a set of robustness/sensitivity scenario tests that account for plausible implementation errors, such as catches made in excess of the advised TAC from the HCR.
