Those are three questions that are on the table when the EU’s fisheries ministers meet on October 27-28 to make a deal on fisheries in the Baltic Sea in 2026. 

But experience suggests that these are not questions the ministers will comment in the official statements after the meeting. Neither, normally, in the media reports.

The ministers generally pat themselves on the back for finding a carefully calibrated balance between incomes and the environment, after tough negotiations. And that their decisions are in line with scientific recommendations – which is based on a misunderstanding. For stocks like herring and sprat in the Baltic the scientists at the International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) do not make recommendations.

The media usually focus on how much the total allowable catches (TACs) go up or down compared to the year before. Maybe, also, if they are higher than the European Commission had proposed, and if so, by how much. They seldom compare next year’s TACs with the actual catches a few years back. This myopia misses the longer-term declining trends.

No one usually comments on what the TAC decisions may mean for the marine environment or coastal ecosystems in a broader sense.

But in a longer perspective it is clear that the risks for fish stocks are for real. The herring in the North Sea crashed in the 1970’s. It recovered, but that was after a five-year fisheries closure that was painful for fishers and dependent coastal communities.

The cod in the Kattegat collapsed in the first decade of the new millennium (or, depending on how you look at it, in 2020). It still hasn’t recovered. 

The herring in the western Baltic collapsed in the second decade of the new millennium. It hasn’t recovered either. 

The cod in the western Baltic collapsed in the third decade of the new millennium.

The sum of the annual careful political balances between the environment and the economy has been to the detriment of both in a longer perspective. 

Take, for example, the German fishers who used to target cod. Their tragic fate was depicted in a German TV documentary from 2023. It would be well if future ministers would take warning. 

Unfortunately, decision-makers have proven willing to take risks with fish stocks, the environment and the future of fisheries. If the ministers don’t approve the Commission’s relatively precautionary proposal it is like a driver opting to not brake when there is a yellow light ahead. In the hope that they will make it past the intersection before it turns red. Or at least that there is not a truck coming in from the left.

When ministers claim to be following scientific recommendations that is, as mentioned, a misunderstanding. Or when they say that their decisions are “in line with the scientific advice” that gets at best into semantics. What the scientists actually present is, in essence, forecasts over catch levels that, under certain assumptions, can be sustainable. And that creates a problem: ministers dish out fishing opportunities based on a yield forecast; no serious company would decide dividends on the basis of forecast profits. But that is in effect what fisheries ministers do. That is an argument for caution: to not try to maximise the catch within the forecast. But most ministers seem not to have gotten that far yet. 

To compound the risks, the forecasts can be more or less uncertain. In Stockholm the Chair of ICES Advisory Committee recently compared their catch forecasts with speed limits: they work well LÄNKenough under normal conditions – but conditions are not normal in the Baltic. A driver who stubbornly drives at the speed limit is behaving recklessly when the road is icy and the weather is foggy. At the same occasion, the EU’s Fisheries Commissioner in effect warned ministers from only reading the speed limit in the headlines, instead of heeding the warnings in the fine print.

Around 10 years ago, the EU’s fisheries ministers and the European Parliament agreed on a level of risk they felt acceptable. Catch limits should be set so that the estimated probability for certain stocks (such as herring) in the Baltic falling into a “danger zone” the following year should be less than five per cent. 

That may have felt not only reasonable but also politically safe back then – the stocks were not close to such levels. And the politicians also adopted an objective of restoring and maintaining stocks to healthy levels. If a stock fell into the risk zone that would trigger special measures so that the stock would rapidly recover. Possibly, the politicians overestimated the precision of the scientific assessments and forecasts.

In any event, since then several stocks have declined. Politicians have relied on uncertain forecasts, ignored clear caveats and bet on luck with incoming year-classes. So this year the scientists say that the herring catches in the Gulf of Bothnia need to be slashed by over 60 per cent to meet the adopted risk level. They also raise warning flags for herring in the central Baltic and for sprat. For the cod and herring in the western Baltic it is even worse. There should be no fishing on these stocks, according to the scientific reports.

The European Commission has taken the warnings seriously. A herring catch of under 26 000 tonnes in the Gulf of Bothnia is what is compliant with the regulation, and that is what the Commission is proposing. The Commission has proposed the same TACs as for 2025 for herring in the central Baltic and for sprat. For herring in the western Baltic and cod the Commission is proposing major reductions from already low levels, and basically that catches should only come from by-catches when targeting other species.

Policy analyst Charles Berkow. Photo: Lisa Bergqvist

An important part of the story is that the scientists also estimate that the probability for 2027 of reaching the objective of safe fish stocks that the ministers and the Parliament set in 2016 are very small, even with the Commission’s proposal for catches 2026. For herring in the Gulf of Bothnia it is less than one chance in four that the target will be met. For herring in the central Baltic the chances are less than 50-50.

So the questions the ministers will answer are not only what catches will be allowed next year. At the Stockholm meeting in September the EU’s fisheries commissioner Costas Kadis said “the central question is – how much risk are we willing to take?” The ministers’ answer will also speak to the question of how seriously they take their objectives – and the legislation their predecessors approved.

Text: Charles Berkow

Published: 2025-10-24