The European Commission’s proposal for new technical conservation rules is a travesty, which breaks all the principles of good governance. The reason that the Commission has belatedly decided to force a new technical conservation onto the statute books is to beat the arrival of the Lisbon Treaty, when all fisheries legislation, apart from the year end TACs and effort levels, will be subject to co-decision making with the European Parliament.
The new proposal is substantially different in structure and detail from the approach previously outlined and discussed with the regional advisory councils. And the truncated time frame before adoption by the Council of Ministers on 20th November means that unless a blocking minority of member states can be found, the Regulation, and with it the dozens of errors, confusions it contains, will become law on 1st January.
At present the NFFO has identified 35 necessary changes –some to prevent the economic collapse of particular fleet, some for safety on deck reasons and yet others to avoid unnecessary discards.
