December Council: The North East

The main North Sea stocks were agreed in the EU negotiations with Norway on 25th November. An 80% reduction in North Sea whiting quota was recommended by ICES, and initially supported by Norway. As part of the deal to moderate this level of cut it was agreed to take steps during 2008 to improve the selectivity of gears that take whiting. The Commission is wedded to a 120mm square mesh panel and tried to use the Council to force the pace to adopt the panel or something with broadly similar effect. The UK and other member states succeeded in blocking this manoeuvre and successfully argued that trialling selectivity devices requires adequate time.  The UK invoked the Hague Preference on haddock and whiting for the first time since 2000. In order to limit other member states’ resistance it was decided to apply the preference at only 20% and 30% respectively rather than the more usual 50%. Nevertheless for whiting this provides a welcome way of moderating the cuts.