The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) represented the UK at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 17 October in Luxembourg. Richard Lochhead MSP also attended.
The Council reached an agreement on fishing opportunities in the Baltic region for 2014. The Commission praised the Baltic member states as both providing a good example of regionalisation and sustainable management of stocks, in line with the spirit of the reformed common fisheries policy.
There was an exchange of views on the European Union-Norway annual fisheries agreement. This agreement is of vital importance to the UK fleet and the UK Government pressed for a 2014 North sea cod total allowable catch (TAC) which was in line with the science, maintaining current effort levels (the number of days fishermen are allowed to spend at sea) and for developing and expanding our discard-free catch quota schemes in the North sea.
In an exchange of views on the EU’s priorities for the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) next month, the UK supported continued protection of bluefin tuna stocks and argued for increasing the protection of vulnerable shark species. The Commission agreed with the UK point that, ICCAT was improving its performance and that this was finally bringing results. They promised to redouble their efforts to protect vulnerable sharks and to secure a ban on shark finning.
Under AOB Ireland raised the north-east Atlantic mackerel management and coastal state negotiations. The UK argued that new scientific advice could provide an opportunity to achieve a breakthrough in the long-running dispute with Iceland. However, a deal should not be at any cost, should not contain new access concessions and Norway must be a full and equal partner in any agreement. There was widespread support for the Commissioner’s approach of moving towards a fair and equitable solution that must involve Norway.