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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
PB April 2023 April 2023 67
decision-making power to ICES”.
If we prioritise short-term socio-economic
objectives at the expense of scientific advice we
will end up depleting stocks and, in the long-term,
jeopardising these socio-economic objectives
themselves too.
FIE’s Senior Counsel, James Devlin, argued that
the 2013 EU Regulations that set the 2020 target
originated in specific MSY obligations established
under the United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea signed in 1994 and were confirmed in
the Political Declaration and Implementation Plan
adopted by World Summit on Sustainable
Development at Johannesburg in 2002 as well as
being embedded in the 2015 UN Sustainable
Development Goals.
This gives the EU Regulations added force,
since both the UN Treaty on the Law of the Sea and
the Johannesburg Summit Plan are “agreements
concluded by the Union”. They are therefore
“binding upon the institutions of the Union and
on its Member States”, according to Article 216 of
the Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union [TFEU].
Years of overfishing have brought many stocks
to the brink of extinction. This is not only bad for
the fish: the disruption to ecosystems undermines
the health of our oceans. But ultimately it also
aects fishermen and women and their coastal
communities across Europe who depend on this
resource for their livelihoods.
The ECJ rulingis expected late this year.
Tony Lowes is a Director of Friends of the Irish
Environment
Agriculture, Food and the Marine issues monthly
Fisheries Management Notices, stipulating the
quantity of each of the fish that may be landed
by Irish fishing vessels.
It is against these notices that a legal test
case was taken by Friends of the Irish
Environment on 10 June 2020. After three days
in the High Court in December 2021, Ireland
passed the case on to the European Court for its
view on the EU Regulation.
The action highlights what are known as
“choke species” such as cod in the West of
Scotland. These are unavoidable by-catches in
mixed fishery scenarios where the ICES
recommended zero tonnes TAC would cause a
fishing vessel to stop fishing even if they still
have an unfilled legal quota for other species.
Scientists have been advising, in some cases
for almost two decades, that there should be no
quotas at all for these vulnerable species while
the stocks recuperate but Ministers have
continued to ignore this advice.
For example, setting the scientifically
recommended TAC at zero for whiting in the Irish
Sea would threaten the Dublin Bay prawn
fisheries, as the prawn fishermen and women
inevitably catch whiting because of the way they
must carry out their trawling.
Both the European Commission and the
European Council were invited by the Court to
“clarify their position”. Both opposed FIE’s
challenge. The European Commission argued
that social and economic factors have to be
taken into account: “Scientific advice is only one
element”, they told
the Court in their
response. The Council
agreed, citing “the
limits of the role
of scientific advice
and that such advice
does not amount to
a delegation of
T
he day before St Patrick’s Day the
European Court of Justice [ECJ] held an
Oral Hearing in Luxembourg on the first
case challenging overfishing in the
European Union.
The case is against Ireland but it is based on the
Common Fisheries Policy [CFP] European
Regulations which were passed in 2013. These
required Member States to end overfishing “by
2015 where possible and, on a progressive,
incremental basis at the latest by 2020 for all
stocks”.
Overfishing is systemic. More than 300
scientists, including 50 Irish experts, asked EU
Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and
Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, to take action on
overfishing two years ago – just as we reached the
legally binding EU deadline for overfishing.
According to the experts, overfishing reduces
fish biomass, threatens biodiversity, alters the
marine food web and degrades marine habitats.
The experts said that in the EU it is estimated that
at least 38% of fish stocks in the North East
Atlantic and Baltic Sea, and 87% in the
Mediterranean and Black Sea, are being
overfished.
The independent International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea [ICES] determines the
quota in tonnes of each species fishers may catch
– the Total Allowable Catches [TACs]. To allow the
stocks to recover and remain above “Maximin
Sustainable Yield” [MSY] levels, this should not
be exceeded. The MSY is the amount of any
species that can be taken without impairing its
reproduction process.
The TAC quotas are set by the EU Ministers
meeting in secret with the ICES advice before
them each Christmas. Yet 47% of the TACs
exceeded the ICES recommendation for 2020.
After the fixing of the TACs and their allocation
to the Member States, the Irish Minister for
EU Member States must end overfishing by 2015
where possible and, on a progressive, incremental
basis, at the latest by 2020, for all stocks
Fishing for Dublin By prwns
inevitbly ctches whiting
FIE asks EU Court to eat the bait on overfishing
EU Commission tells ECJthat social and economic, as well as scientific,factors,
must be weighed by Minister for Marine in deciding if the taking of a fish species,
that is safeguarded by a quota of zero but which is inevitably caught when
targeting another fish species, renders the whole catch illegal
By Tony Lowes
ENVIRONMENT
FIE nd Client Erth in the ECJ;
front row: solicitor Fred Logue
nd brrister Jmes Devlin
