Significantly, the proposal features an obligation to land all catches of certain fish species – to stop the practice of discarding.
The new rules spell out how the ban will work in practice, specifying for instance that undersized fish may not be used for human consumption, except for charitable purposes. The obligation to land all catches will enter into force in two stages: some species (cod, haddock, pelagic species like herring and mackerel) will be covered from 1 January 2013, the rest (mainly flat fish and species like sandeel or Norway pout) as from 1 January 2015.
New technical measures agreed with Norway are also being introduced. The initiative was prompted by the revocation of an agreement dating back to 1966, which allowed Swedish, Danish and Norwegian vessels to fish up to four nautical miles from each other's coasts whilst remaining under flag-state jurisdiction.
With the 1966 agreement revoked, the vessels will have to comply with coastal-state jurisdiction, which is why EU and Norwegian rules must be harmonised. Though the only EU countries that can fish within four miles of the Norwegian coast are Denmark and Sweden, the new measures will apply to all EU Member States having fishing rights in the Skagerrak, i.e. also vessels from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
