11 December 2015
Many have predicted that the EU landings obligation - because of the top-down way it has been designed – is a car crash in the making. Not many, however, predicted the car would crash before it got out of the garage.
A minor procedural sub-Committee of the Parliament seems to
have achieved this spectacular own-goal by demanding more time for
consideration of the Commission’s delegated act, which is the legal vehicle for
the North Sea discard plan; this plan
has been painstakingly put together over the course of the past year by the
relevant member states, working with the North Sea Advisory Council.
The implications of this piece of petty procedural point
scoring are as yet unclear but on the face of it, it means that instead of a
phased introduction of the demersal landings obligation from 1st
January 2016, vessels fishing in the
North Sea will be legally obliged to land all regulated species. No phasing, no
exemptions, no ways of dealing with inevitable chokes in mixed fisheries.
Under the CFP, the discard plans, formulated at the regional
seas level by member states, must go to the European Parliament and the Council
of Ministers for scrutiny. It was expected that both institutions would provide
a rapid stamp of approval because that is the way that the new regionalisation
of policy has been envisaged and designed. The sub-committee of coordinators,
however, has demanded extra time to consider the draft plan, pushing implementation
into late February. Unless some way can be found to reverse this act of folly,
the landings obligation, unmediated or softened by any discard plan will come
into force in the North Sea at one minute after midnight on 1st January. The delay only applies to the North
Sea but is not without implications for North West Waters.
This act of petty stupidity is disrespectful of the member
states concerned and the North Sea Advisory Council, who have both worked to limit the disruptive potential of
the landings obligation by phasing its introduction. More importantly, it is
disrespectful of the fishermen who have been preparing for the landings
obligation only to have the goalposts shifted 20 days before it comes into
force. The North Sea discard plan requires vessels targeting haddock, nephrops, plaice, sole or northern prawn to land
those species in 2016, with additional species to be added each year until 2019
when all quota species would be included. Unless this decision can be reversed,
from 1st January all demersal vessels operating in the North Sea are
potentially exposed to prosecution for infringement of a regulation with which
they do not have the means comply. All the guidance notes anticipating a phased
approach, which carefully justified specific exemptions would be worthless.
Realistically, there should be no threat of enforcement action on vessels in
the short-term simply because member states have been caught as unawares as the
industry. But that is only of limited comfort.
Regionalisation
One of the reasons why regionalisation was included as a key
feature of the 2013 CFP reform was the recognition that co-decision with the
European Parliament would make fisheries policy even more cumbersome, remote, and
inflexible than decisions taken alone by the Council of Ministers.
Regionalisation was seen as a necessary step towards decentralisation and
bottom up decision-making, circumventing the need for detailed issues such as
legal mesh sizes and twine thicknesses to be decided at the European level. Specific
provision was included within the CFP for regional discard plans to be
developed. Beyond the immediate chaos for fisheries administrators and
fishermen, this petty and myopic decision by an obscure procedural committee
raises the question of whether regionalisation is going to be allowed to
function, or will be strangled at birth by procedure.
What Now?
The NFFO is talking directly to senior officials within
DEFRA to see how the damage can be limited and whether this decision can be
reversed. We really don’t need this distraction only a few days before the
beginning of the December Council when crucial decisions will be made on next
year’s quotas and a moratorium on catching bass. Not least, what will the
implications for quota uplift to accommodate the species coming under the
landings obligation be? Intense discussions are being held with lawyers, other
member states and the Commission to resolve the issue through short term fix – or
the EP finding reverse gear.