Science to fork: Fisheries management in the European Union

Raúl Prellezo. Principal Researcher at AZTI

Total allowable catches (TACs) are the main fisheries management measure in EU Atlantic waters. In the Mediterranean, on the other hand, fishing opportunities are managed through effort limitations. In both cases, and as set out in the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), the management objective is to modulate catches to bring the biomass of each fish stock towards the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), i.e. the maximum catch that a fish stock can support in the long term.

Once the fisheries and biological data have been collected and collated, scientific bodies work together to assess the current state of exploitation and the exploitation limits that cannot be exceeded, and use this information to provide management advice that will ensure exploitation at MSY. Scientific advice is subject to great uncertainty because counting fish is like counting trees, except that fish cannot be seen and they move. In addition, factors such as accelerated global change, including climate change, cause additional variability in stocks that is difficult to predict. In the face of this uncertainty, the CFP requires the management board to incorporate precautionary criteria.

On the basis of this scientific advice, and in accordance with the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, the European Commission makes a proposal for TACs or fishing effort limits, and it is the European Council (AGRIFISH) that takes the final decision. The maximum fishing opportunities are allocated to each Member State on the basis of the principle of relative stability, which is nothing more than a fixed percentage of the TAC, and the same each year for each of them (the quota). Each Member State then allocates its quota to its national fleets.

While all parties (including the fishing sector) agree that sustainability is desirable, the date by which it is to be achieved is crucial to this decision. The CFP has set the objective of achieving MSY for all stocks by 2020, a deadline that has been extended to 2025 for the Mediterranean. In order to reach this date, reductions in annual fishing opportunities may therefore be more or less drastic.

This year, the Spanish trawler fleet in the Mediterranean would have been hardest hit by the Commission’s proposal, which proposed a 79% reduction in the number of fishing days calculated by scientific bodies to achieve the management objective in 2025 (MSY for all fish stocks). This proposal would have reduced the number of days at sea from a maximum of 130 in 2024 to only 27 in 2025, with very significant social and economic consequences. However, the agreement reached in AGRIFISH allows up to 104 days of fishing beyond this initial reduction if vessels apply more selective technical measures.

And in the Atlantic? The result is uneven. Stocks in the north-west Bay of Biscay have generally had their fishing possibilities increased, while the northernmost stocks, many of which are shared with the United Kingdom (mackerel and hake) and Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands (mackerel), have had their fishing possibilities reduced. Moreover, in these cases, since they are non-EU countries, the distribution of national quotas is no longer based on the principle of relative stability but on multilateral negotiations.

When we hear the news of declining fishing opportunities, very little is said about the state of the stocks. If the advice is for a decline, it is because the state of the stocks is not sufficient to meet the management objectives, and this is usually the basis for the European Commission’s proposal. We are talking about the consequence, not the cause. Throughout this process, it is important to understand that scientific advice is based not only on conservation, but also on management objectives previously defined by political representatives. To ensure the long-term sustainability of fisheries, it is essential to improve the robustness of scientific advice, especially in the face of uncertainty generated by global change, and to incorporate economic and social criteria. At present, however, there are few people in charge of responding to these scientific challenges. Spain represents 25% of the added value of fisheries in the EU. Therefore, the contribution to the Scientific Council must reflect the importance of fisheries in Spain, ensuring not only the sustainability of fisheries in the long term, but also the sustainability of the human and financial resources that make up the Scientific Council.

Opinion published in EL CORREO