European Voice reports that

European Union fisheries ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday (17 October) are expected to agree on the distribution of rights to fish in the Baltic Sea in 2014.

There is, however, to be another item on the agenda:

The ministers will also discuss the annual consultations between the EU and Norway on their bilateral fisheries agreement, which is likely to encompass the ongoing fishing dispute over mackerel with Iceland.

There has been a great deal on this blog about the bullying of Iceland and the Faroe Islands. There is no need to repeat any of that for the time being. However, it is interesting to note in the light of the argument about the size of catches and whether, as both the Icelanders and the Faroese insist, there has been an increase in the amount of fish available, that

Last week, the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES), an independent scientific organisation, issued recommended mackerel catch levels for 2014 of 889,886 tonnes, a 64% increase from 2013, based on the fact that the stock has expanded north-west towards Iceland. Based on this migration, Iceland has begun unilaterally increasing its fishing, but the EU has threatened sanctions. Iceland welcomed the ICES report.

What exactly is the EU's argument and why is Britain supporting it, given the facts? Come to think of it, does Britain have the right not to support it as long as the common fisheries policy remains in place?

As we await the outcome of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting it is worth remembering that one of the arguments is going to be about cod.

As Monday's story makes it clear, there is likely to be some disagreement over cod and what we are to do about it.

EU ministers meet on Tuesday for annual fishing quota talks. Richard Benyon said he would argue against cuts of 20% in catches and 25% in the number of fishing days.

He said scientists had told the government they were unnecessary. But UK marine expert Callum Roberts said cod levels were still too low.

Cod stocks are going up and it is questionable whether the scientifically unproven idea of ever more cuts in catches is the best way forward. This is what Mr Benyon told the BBC:

"We're not absolutely perfectly at the trajectory laid out in the cod recovery plan but cod stocks are rising," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"The problem with the cod recovery plan is that it is a bad plan - there's no flexibility in it at all."

He added: "We've got good scientific advice which says the proposed cuts to the quota will have a negative effect - it will actually result in more mortality."

He said that if the cuts - which would be implemented in February - came in, "fishermen, for example, will have less time to fish so they will fish closer to port, possibly where the fish are spawning, rather than where there are bigger fish so they won't be discarding."

He would go into the talks "abiding by science" and "working towards fishing to sustainable levels", he said.

Other scientists say that the only way to increase cod stocks further is to go on lowering the fishing effort. The unfortunate aspect to all this is that the decisions, such as they are, will be taken far away from the fishing areas by people who have no interest in it at all.

The BBC's Kevin Keane, meanwhile, said a "power struggle" was threatening to derail negotiations before they began.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) had been given a greater say since the Lisbon Treaty became law in 2009, he said.

And he said some legal experts had warned that, if the EU ministers decided to impose cuts, it could face a legal challenge by the European Parliament.

Thus, what we are likely to get is some sort of mish-mash of a political compromise that will satisfy no-one. That is how it will go on while we remain in the Common Fisheries Policy.

The December meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council (scheduled to take place in Brussels on December 18 and 19 this year) is the big one as that is the one on which various decisions are taken that will affect fishing efforts and catches in the following year. Of course, as these decisions are taken centrally (in Brussels) for a large area that includes many different kinds of fish and fishing they are likely to be extremely unsatisfactory.

In the meantime, here is the official agenda of items to be discussed.

Here is the Press Release that gives a summary of decisions reached at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council at the end of last week. First come matters to do with CAP. Decisions to do with fisheries are on page 10 and following. Mostly they are to do with deep sea fishing and an agreement with Norway.

There will, one assumes be statements in both Houses either later today or tomorrow.

As the official statement said (in this case in the House of Lords but it is the same statement), the Agriculture and Fisheries Council met yesterday and today.

The second day [i.e. today, November 29] will be dedicated to fisheries issues. The Council will discuss a proposal on the fixing for 2013 and 2014 fishing opportunities for EU vessels for certain deep sea stocks, and the EU/Norway 2013 negotiations. There is an any other business point about the fixing of the total allowable catch (TAC) for Norway pout.

We await the official statement though not exactly with bated breath.

We are now living under a Danish Presidency in the European Union as the system of rotation goes on. Its work programme on the fisheries was presented  at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting. In parenthesis, it has to be noted that the European Union does not go in for mundane matters like legislation through elected legislative assemblies, however one calls them but through administrative work programmes that continue regardless of electoral cycles.

Regarding the fisheries policy reform, the Council will aim to conclude the debate on the reform package, which consists of a new basic regulation, a new common market organisation and a new European maritime and fisheries fund for 2014-2020.

Not a particularly ambitious programme and no mention of the real CFP that should come into its own this year.

We shall have much to say about the agreement reached at the end of the Fishing Council on Saturday, but let us begin by linking to an article by Patrick Sawer in the Daily Telegraph.

The title is: Fishermen angry at European Union decision to reduce number of days at sea. It is perfectly understandable that fishermen should be angry at this decision:

Although the British fishing fleet will be allowed to catch bigger quotas, it faces an estimated 15 to 25 per cent cut in the number of days at sea following marathon talks which ended at dawn on Saturday in Brussels. As a result of the deal the UK’s fleet will be confined to port for longer than ever. That will make it hard for trawlers to take advantage of some big rises in fish catch quotas agreed following the success of conservation measures in some regions. Britain fended off moves to cut fishermen’s days at sea to just four a fortnight next year, in exchange for greater national fish conservation efforts. But boats will still be confined to ports for longer than before.

On the other hand, the various organizations cannot be surprised. This was on the cards all along: there would be cuts in days at sea to accommodate the demands for the elimination of discards and, at the same time, to make it possible for all the CFP fleets to go on fishing in what is designated as Community waters. This is, after all, a common policy. Nor shall the problems be solved until we are out of it and are in a position to make our own decisions to suit our own fishing industry.

The Agriculture and Fisheries Council met today at 10 am.
The points on the agenda are:

Fisheries

External dimensions of the reform of Common Fisheries Policy
Ministers will discuss the Commission’s Communication on the external dimension of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). This was part of the package of proposals for a reform of the CFP, adopted on 13 July (IP/11/873).

The reform foresees an active role of EU within international bodies and in its relations with third countries. Almost 85% of the world fish stocks for which information is available are reported as being either fully exploited or overexploited, according to the FAO. So, the EU has to act abroad as it does at home and promote good governance and a sound management of the sea in the rest of the world, ensuring at the same time human rights for workers in fishing industries and sustainability in sea basins and oceans around the world. These principles will guide the EU’s involvement in international and regional organisations as well as in bilateral fisheries agreements with non-EU countries.

Sustainable Fisheries Agreements (SFAs) will replace the existing Fisheries Partnership Agreements (FPAs) and they will ensure that the exploitation of fishery resources takes place on the basis of sound scientific advice only targeting surplus resources that the partner country cannot or does not want to fish itself. Under SFAs, partner countries shall be compensated for granting access to their fishing resources and financial assistance shall be provided to the partner countries for the implementation of a sustainable fisheries policy.

There will, undoubtedly, be a statement later. The small print will be interesting to read.

The Fisheries Council meets in December and a good deal of horse-trading (make that fish-trading) will be going on in the next few month. Breakingnews.ie. reports of the first round:

The European Commission today called for a halt to cod fishing for the whole of next year off the West of Scotland and in the Irish Sea in a bid to boost conservation.

The crackdown is part of proposed EU catch allowances unveiled today which signal the start of intense haggling over quotas for fishing fleets in the run-up to a final deal in December.

More news of horse-trading fish-trading as it comes in.

Statement made both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords about the last Agriculture and Fisheries Council on June 28, attended Richard Benyon and Richard Lochhead MSP.

The Statement deals with the proposed Commission plan to change various regulations in the CFP in order to turn the policy into a sustainable one.

Commissioner Damanaki spoke about the Commission's proposed framework for setting catch levels for 2012 and beyond via the total allowable catch (TAC) and quota regulation (TQR). Against a backdrop of the poor state of many EU fish stocks and the continued issue of overfishing, the Commission announced its aim to ensure that all fish stocks should be fished within the threshold of maximum sustainable yield (MSY) by 2015 and where there was insufficient scientific advice or data the precautionary approach should be adopted and a cut of 25 per cent should be applied to the TAC. Commissioner Damanaki also explained that she intended to split the TQR into two parts this year in order to improve the process: internal stocks to be decided at the November council and external (those subject to international negotiations, principally joint EU-Norway stocks) in December.

There was near universal opposition to the idea of the 25 per cent cut for data-poor stocks with 19 of the 22 fishing member states (and Austria) explicitly opposing this. There was concern that this approach would merely increase levels of discarded fish in many cases and that a more targeted approach, using all available data or advice, even incomplete, would be preferable.

There was widespread concern among all fishing member states about aspects of the MSY principle. Nearly all noted that 2015 was the target for all fisheries and that this should be achieved on a gradual basis. The UK, along with Ireland, Spain, Belgium and coastal state in the Baltic expressed concern about how individual species MSY targets could be identified correctly in a multi-species environment.

The UK, Spain, Denmark, France, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal and Austria also expressed concern about the idea of splitting the TQR decision-making across two councils, creating administrative inefficiency.

Other discussions were about Ireland complaining about mackerel fishing by Iceland and the Faroe Islands as well as a report back from the Netherlands on the high-level conference on Common Fisheries Policy reform that took place in Noordwijk in March 2011.