The Council of the European Union has reached an agreement on the fishing opportunities in the Baltic Sea for 2023.
Announcing the agreement, the European Commission stated that the situation in the Baltic Sea remains difficult, as the sea basin continues to struggle with severe environmental pressures and many challenges to the ecosystems, including the state of the fish stocks.
“In recent years, we have been working together to restore the marine environment and the fish stocks of the Baltic Sea. I am happy that the Council has agreed to follow the Commission’s comprehensive approach to setting fishing opportunities and has followed our proposal for most stocks,” EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius said.
Sinkevičius added that the “very responsible decisions” reached by the member states will help bring the Baltic to a “better environmental status”, so that it can once again become a source of living and livelihood for our fishermen and women.
Under the agreement, the current fishing opportunities for several stocks will be carried over into 2023.
The Council also agreed to continue additional recovery management measures, such as limiting fishing to unavoidable by-catches for the two cod stocks, main basin salmon and western herring, as well as maintained spawning closures and limitations on recreational fisheries for Baltic cod and salmon in some areas.
According to the Commission, the recent adoption of new rules making the use of more selective fishing gear for flatfish mandatory is expected to result in improvements allowing for the increase of the plaice total allowable catch (TAC), without putting more pressure on the ailing cod stocks.
Furthermore, the Council agreed increases for central herring, while the TACs for sprats, Bothnian herring and Riga herring were reduced.
The agreement also includes an in-year amendment of the fishing opportunities in the Atlantic, for southern hake. In line with revised scientific advice and as proposed by the Commission, the EU quota has been increased to 14,096 tonnes to allow fishers to profit already this year from the improved situation of the stock.
