(2004/C 78 E/0890)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3616/03

by Esko Seppänen (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(5 December 2003)

Subject:   Setting fishing quotas for the new Member States

How does the Commission intend to set appropriate fishing quotas in the Baltic when the new Member States join the Union, and will it be possible, for example, to include in them obligations on the new Member States with regard to salmon restocking?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(21 January 2004)

The relative stability keys for the first allocation of fishing quotas to the new Member States are laid down in the Treaty of Accession. For the Baltic Sea, the allocation keys are based on current practice in the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission (IBSFC). The total allowable catches (TACs) for the Baltic Sea in 2004 were agreed at the Annual Session of the IBSFC in September-October 2003 and the results are transposed into the Community legislation through the TAC and Quota Regulation for 2004.

As regards salmon restocking, there are currently no such obligations on the Member States in Community legislation and there will thus not be any for the new Member States either. However at IBSFC level, where the new Member States bordering the Baltic Sea are all involved, there is a series of Recommendations regarding the Salmon Action Plan 1997-2010, which includes that ‘wild salmon populations shall be re-established in potential salmon rivers’.