rd 43 PLENARY MEETING REPORT OF THE SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC COMMITTEE FOR FISHERIES (PLEN-13-02) PLENARY MEETING, 8-12 July 2013, Copenhagen Edited by John Casey & Hendrik Doerner 2013 Report EUR 26094 EN European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen Contact information STECF secretariat Address: TP 051, 21027 Ispra (VA), Italy E-mail: [email protected] Tel.: 0039 0332 789343 Fax: 0039 0332 789658 https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/home http://ipsc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ http://www.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ Legal Notice Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use which might be made of this publication. This report does not necessarily reflect the view of the European Commission and in no way anticipates the Commission’s future policy in this area. Europe Direct is a service to help you find answers to your questions about the European Union Freephone number (*): 00 800 6 7 8 9 10 11 (*) Certain mobile telephone operators do not allow access to 00 800 numbers or these calls may be billed. A great deal of additional information on the European Union is available on the Internet. It can be accessed through the Europa server http://europa.eu/ JRC 83565 EUR 26094 EN ISBN 978-92-79-32531-1 ISSN 1831-9424 doi:10.2788/96228 Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013 © European Union, 2013 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged How to cite this report: Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) – 43rd Plenary Meeting Report (PLEN-13-02). 2013. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, EUR 26904 EN, JRC 83565, 120 pp. Printed in Italy TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................5 2. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS...........................................................................................5 3. Information to the plenary ............................................................................................5 3.1. STECF plenary – information from the secretariat ......................................................5 4. STECF INITIATIVES..................................................................................................6 4.1. Scope and Terms of reference for EWG 13-16 – Landing obligation in EU Fisheries6 5. ASSESSMENT OF STECF EWG REPORTS...........................................................11 5.1. STECF-EWG-13-03 and 13-04: Annual Economic Report of the EU fleets 2013....11 5.2. STECF-EWG 13-05: DC-MAP Part II.......................................................................13 5.3. STECF-EWG-13-06: Evaluation of fishing effort regimes in European waters – part 1 ..................................................................................................................................14 5.4. STECF-EWG-13-07: Evaluation of 2012 MS Technical Reports under DCF...........25 5.5. STECF-EWG-13-08: Advice on stocks - part 2.........................................................26 6. ADDITIONAL REQUESTS SUBMITTED TO THE STECF PLENARY BY THE COMMISSION...........................................................................................................27 6.1. Identification of plaice spawning and nursery areas in ICES areas VIId and VIIe and possible closures or other management measures ......................................................27 6.2. Request for a review of the Maltese management plan for Lampuki, dolphinfish FAD fisheries..............................................................................................................38 6.3. Request for a review of the Greek management plan for trawl fisheries ...................45 6.4. Request for a review of the Croatian management plan for purse seine fisheries......54 6.5. Request for a review of the Croatian management plan for bottom trawl fisheries ...60 6.6. Request for a review of Maltese management plan for bottom otter trawl and Lampara purse seine fisheries.....................................................................................67 6.7. Request for advice on proposed changes for Art 16.6 of the cod plan (R 1342/2008) to allow capacity and effort transfers between areas ..................................................73 6.8. Request for advice on cod avoidance and discard reduction measures taken by the Member States in 2013 ...............................................................................................75 6.9. Request for an STECF opinion on the implementation of Article 13.2 of the Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008..................................................................................81 6.10. Request to the STECF to rank the effort groups under the cod plan fishing effort regime according to their contribution to cod catches in 2012...................................90 3 6.11. Request for a STECF opinion on the fishing effort ceilings allocated in Sole and Plaice fisheries of the North Sea.................................................................................95 6.12. Request to develop guidelines for the improved implementation of Article 13, including the methodology and information requirements for the Member State annual reports and methodology for STECF to determine and quantify an excess effort. ..........................................................................................................................99 6.13. Request to for advice on Baltic discards...................................................................107 6.14. Request to review the ICES Workshop on Evaluating Progress with Eel Management Plans (WKEPEMP).............................................................................113 7. STECF RECOMMENDATIONS FROM STECF-PLEN-13-02 .............................116 8. CONTACT DETAILS OF STECF MEMBERS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS.116 4 43rd PLENARY MEETING REPORT OF THE SCIENTIFIC, TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC COMMITTEE FOR FISHERIES (PLEN-13-02) PLENARY MEETING 8-12 JULY 2013, COPENHAGEN 1. INTRODUCTION The STECF plenary took place at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, Copenhagen (Denmark), from 8 to 12 July 2013. The Chairman of the STECF, Dr John Casey, opened the plenary session at 10:00h. The terms of reference for the meeting were reviewed and the meeting agenda agreed. The session was managed through alternation of Plenary and working group meetings. Rapporteurs for each item on the agenda were appointed and are identified in the list of participants. The meeting closed at 16:00h on 12 July. 2. LIST OF PARTICIPANTS The meeting was attended by 30 members of the STECF, two external experts, and four JRC personnel. Three Directorate General Maritime Affairs and Fisheries personnel (DG MARE) attended parts of the meeting. Section 8 of this report provides a detailed participant list with contact details. The following members of the STECF informed the Chairman and Secretariat that they were unable to attend the meeting: Georgi Daskalov Sakari Kuikka Christoph Stransky 3. INFORMATION TO THE PLENARY 3.1. STECF plenary – information from the secretariat The secretariat informed the Committee on a recent update of the STECF web site section ‘About STECF’ where a updated information on the STECF work flow, declarations and STECF members CVs have been placed (http://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/about-stecf ). 5 4. STECF INITIATIVES 4.1. Scope and Terms of reference for EWG 13-16 – Landing obligation in EU Fisheries Background Article 15 of the new CFP Basic Regulation (BR) recently agreed by the European Parliament and the Council, introduced a discard ban or landing obligation. This represents a fundamental shift in fisheries policy. The final text agreed by the Council and European Parliament includes a number of exemptions and flexibility tools that raise issues for implementation, catch forecasting, stock assessment and control and monitoring. The European Commission has requested STECF and ICES to consider these issues. At a scoping meeting involving STECF and the ICES Secretariat held during the summer plenary of STECF these issues were discussed and a draft work plan agreed between STECF and ICES of how to address them. Exemptions issues relating to the discard ban Survival Article 15 paragraph 2(b) of the BR provides for an exemption from the landing obligation for the following: “species for which scientific evidence demonstrates high survival rates, taking into account the characteristics of the gear, of the fishing practices and of the ecosystem;” This raises three issues: ‐ Demonstration: It is considered that Member States are likely to undertake survival studies to avail of this exemption. In the short-term based on previous STECF advice in 2012, which identified methodological and operational limitations in many earlier studies, there will be a requirement for the provision of guidelines or identification of best practice for undertaking discard-survival studies. In developing such guidelines consideration should also be given to providing a predefined list of species and fisheries that could be considered for exemption. ‐ Definitions of high: There is currently no objective means to define ‘high survival rates’. Therefore there is a need to develop an objective framework which will provide managers with a range of the likely impacts of different options depending on