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EU Fisheries ministers' all-night debate leads to continued Baltic #overfishing

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Light painting of artwork by Belgian street artist Gijs Vanhee, showing fish swimming outside the Luxembourg conference centre where the AGRIFISH meeting was taking place late at night.  

Campaign organization Our Fish this morning (10 October) slammed the decision by EU fisheries ministers to set 2018 western Baltic cod quotas four times higher than cautious scientific advice during an all night AGRIFISH meeting in Luxembourg.

After hours of deliberations that continued until after 6am, EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council ministers agreed to set Total Allowable Catches (TAC) for western Baltic cod at 5,597 tonnes, four times higher than the most cautious scientific advice, despite the stock being critically overfished. Eastern Baltic cod was set at 28,388 tonnes, almost four thousand tonnes higher than scientific advice.

“Despite staying up all night, all EU fisheries ministers accomplished is once again setting Total Allowable Catches for Baltic cod far higher than recommended by scientific advice”, said Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard. “EU citizens would be better served by ministers who understand that quotas need to be a fraction of current levels, so that Baltic cod stocks can recover from decades of overfishing.”

“This is the fourth year in a row that the Council of EU fisheries ministers have set fishing limits for western Baltic cod significantly above scientific advice, despite the stock being severely overfished. Governments are pursuing a downward spiral of these once great fish stocks, which has serious ecological and social impacts, and goes against both EU fisheries law and public sentiment.”

“It is already well established that setting fishing limits based on scientific advice will help ensure healthy fish stocks, and reap greater social and economic benefits for communities”, said Hubbard. “Yet despite this opportunity, fisheries ministers are still unwilling to follow scientific advice. With relative profits of the fishing industry at an all time high and fish stocks severely overfished, fisheries ministers are missing a perfect opportunity to secure sustainable Baltic cod stocks”, concluded Hubbard.

AGRIFISH meets again in December 2017 to discuss and decide on Total Allowable Catches for fish stocks in the North East Atlantic. Deliberations are expected to be even more laborious than for the Baltic stocks, with more than 150 stocks under discussion.

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