The National Fisheries Committee (CNPMEM), representing the French commercial fishing sector, is looking to make 2027 a year of transition for fisheries in the Bay of Biscay that have for the last few years been subject to month-long winter closures.
New guidelines have already been announced for the coming winter closure, designed to soften the blow for fishing companies while meeting the need to minimise unwanted cetacean by-catches. While the details have yet to be confirmed, CNPMEM is hoping to see a clear, workable framework that will give visibility to stakeholders and avoid the organisational challenges already encountered during previous closures.
According to CNPMEM, the shared objective must be to ensure the long-term protection of cetaceans while preserving economic activity, businesses, and the future of French fishing – which means moving away from a closures that are automatically renewed each year and developing long-term solutions that reconcile environmental performance with the viability of businesses.
CNPMEM points out that French fishermen have been actively participating in bycatch reduction schemes and scientific programmes in the Bay of Biscay. More than 280 vessels are involved in the PIFIL, DolphinFree, ObsCAMe and ObsCAMe+ initiatives, while estimates of bycatch have been revised downwards by 23% following the PELAGIS observatory’s revision of the carcass back-drift/float model.
The industry is advocating for an organisational model that provides operators with flexibility in choosing their closure period over a four-week period between 1st January and 31st March. This approach would allow each company to take into account organisational constraints, weather conditions, biological cycles, and economic balance, while maintaining the collective effort to reduce bycatch.
‘Fishermen have taken responsibility for reducing bycatch and supporting scientific work. The announced changes should allow us to build a more transparent system that is better adapted to the realities on the ground,’ said CNPMEM President Olivier Le Nezet.
‘Our objective is clear: to make 2027 a true year of transition in order to allow the reopening of the Bay of Biscay as early as 2028, based on science, the evaluation of results obtained and the deployment of sustainable technical solutions rather than on the automatic renewal of closures.’
He commented that a more flexible implementation would also allow for a smoother continuation of landings, avoiding a shutdown of the sector as a whole. The economic consequences of which have already been shown to be severe as wholesalers have seen a 53% drop in volume during previous closures, while over €50 million in public aid has been mobilised over three years to support these measures. Fish markets in fishing ports, also affected, have never benefited from compensation mechanisms despite significant overhead costs.
