Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The 2013 reformed Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, Regulation (EU) 1380/2013 introduced the landing obligation or discards ban, that is, the obligation to land all catches for stocks under catch limits or minimum conservation reference size. The long-term implementation of the landing obligation was to be set out in regional multi-annual management plans, MAPs, adopted through co-decision. However, since it was envisaged that the adoption of MAPs would take some time, the CFP provided for the adoption of discard plans through Commission-delegated acts shaped through joint recommendations of the member states concerned. These discard plans could last for a period of no more than three years.

The first Commission-delegated regulations establishing discard plans entered into force on 1 January 2015 and are expiring at the end of 2017. After the expiration of the initial three-year period, the CFP only empowers the Commission to adopt very limited delegated acts to implement the landing obligation, since the objective was to have all MAPs in place after three years. To date, however, only the Baltic multi-annual plan is in place. Two Commission proposals for multi-annual plans for demersals in the North Sea and small pelagics in the Adriatic are under negotiation between the co-legislators. A proposal for the north-western waters multi-annual plan which is of greatest concern to Ireland is expected to be published later this year.

Against this background, the intention of the proposal amending the basic regulation was to extend the empowerment of the Commission to adopt discard plans for a further total period of up to three years while the remaining MAPs were being negotiated. The purpose is to allow the regional group of member states' discards plans to have legal effect for a further three years in order to facilitate the implementation of the landing obligation. For Ireland’s pelagic industry the concern was not immediate, but all were conscious of the implications for demersal discard plans which would expire at the end of 2018. It is demersal fisheries that will require the full use of the flexibilities available under the CFP to try to avoid so-called choke situations where there is insufficient quota to cover catches that must be landed.

Member states were only informed in July that the Commission intended to bring forward a proposal for an amendment to Regulation 1380/2013 to deal with this issue. My Department had previously raised it with industry representatives at meetings of the sea fisheries liaison group, SFLG, in March and May. The SFLG is the formal group where either my officials or I meet the representatives of the producer organisations – the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation, KFO; the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation, IS&WFO; the Irish South and East Fish Producers Organisation, IS&EFPO, and the Irish Fish Producers Organisation, IFPO - and the representative organisation for processors, the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association, IFPEA, to discuss issues arising.

With the announcement of a specific proposal, a more in-depth discussion took place at the SFLG meeting held on 19 July. At that meeting all representatives agreed that there was a need to allow discard plans to continue and that if that required a change in the regulation, that is what should be done. The formal proposal was circulated to both industry and NGO stakeholders on 31 August. Only one response was received and it was supportive of the amendment. During the discussions that took place at the Council fisheries working party Ireland consequently supported the proposed amendment so as to allow the continuation of discard plans. The proposal received the full support of the EU Fisheries Council and the European Parliament and the amendment was given legal effect earlier this month.