The Council has in practise accepted a one in four risk that fish stocks fall below a limit value instead of accepting a risk of 1 to 20, meaning by coming below this limit, they could crash or be “harmed” in the next year. Moving with unusual speed and without the normal consultations and impact assessments, the Commission has in effect accepted this higher risk. It has proposed, together with the Council, that the Council should be allowed to take similar or even higher risks in the future.

Fortunately, the proposal will also be discussed in the Parliament. That gives a bit of time for reflection and discussion on how good an idea this actually is.

MAPs

The multiannual plans (MAPs) were adopted by the EU as a central tool to achieve sustainable fisheries after the reform of the Common Fisheries policy in 2013. The Baltic MAP, adopted in 2016, was the first, and the model for the others.

A key goal of the MAP, and of the CFP, is to restore and maintain levels of commercially fished stocks above levels that can produce “maximal sustainable yield”. But in case they do not succeed, there is a safety catch in the MAP: fishing quotas are to be set in a way that in any case does not give more than a 5% probability that the stocks fall below a crisis level called Blim (the biomass limit, below which reproduction may be impaired, meaning the stock could collapse or being permanently reduced in productivity). Falling below Blim means that the fishery irrevocably should be stopped. Of note, these limits are rather arbitrarily set, and there is a risk that the stocks in the Central Baltic as well as in the Gulf of Bothnia already are reduced in reproductive capacity due to fact that years of overfishing have passed unnoticed.

The October surprise

Due in part to overly optimistic decisions in the Council, the state of two of the four herring stocks in the Baltic is now so bad that even with no fishing in 2024 they were estimated to have too high a probability of falling below the crisis level in 2025. In accordance with rule 4(6) in the MAP regulation the Commission duly proposed closing the targeted fisheries for them.

In doing so, it fudged the definition of “targeted” for one of them, leaving a gaping loophole allowing for an unknown but large amount of herring to be caught as “bycatch” in the sprat fishery. And, implicitly, allowing a much higher level of risk than the regulation permitted.

The Council, ostensibly not understanding the MAP-regulation, decided in October to set fishing levels with a much higher level of risk. Then again, they also requested that the Commission start a process to remove the offending safe-guard, suggesting that they did in fact understand that they were breaking the rules.

How big a risk is sustainable?

According to calculations by ICES (International Council for Exploration of the Sea, the scientific body that does these estimates for the Baltic and Northeast Atlantic) the levels of fishing approved by the Council would give a 20% or larger probability of the stocks falling below the limit level. For the central Baltic herring, the probability is a whopping 29% (assuming the Russians will stick to their fair share of the herring catches, which they haven’t for the past years). That is, the Member States’ fisheries ministers Council are taking a one in four chance of the stock falling into the danger zone, more than five times the level currently allowed in the MAP-regulation.

If the Council would make such decisions for a stock four years in a row, statistically, the stock would likely fall below the limit value. Put another way, if the Council would make such a decision for four stocks this year, at least one would be expected to get into the red zone next year.

It should be noted that these probabilities are estimates, based on expected growth of the stocks. These growth projections might be loosely compared to the projections made by banks about the growth of the economy, the rate of inflation or the interest rate. That is, they are by nature uncertain. In Baltic fisheries, the uncertainties can be very great, due to misreporting tainting the data fed into the models, environmental changes impacting relations the models are based on, the weather or other uncertainties. So in reality, the probabilities could be lower – or higher.

One might compare the odds accepted by the Council with those of a classic Russian roulette, where the odds are in fact better, only one out of six.

Serious consequences or sky is the limit?

But that raises another question: how serious are the consequences of being unlucky? In Russian roulette, the consequences are very serious for the individual player.

But for fish stocks? The consequences for the fishers and the communities where people make a living by catching or processing fish is that people can lose their livelihoods. This is less serious than losing one’s life, but serious enough.

The consequences for the marine environment can be more far-reaching and long-lasting. The fishing for the Norwegian spring spawning herring was stopped in the mid-1960s, and the ban lasted for 30 years. However, it saved the most important fish stock in Europe, and Norway can rightly pride themselves on taking the wise and correct decision at the right time. Herring are a key low-trophic level species, interacting with other species both as predator and prey and a motor moving energy flows in the Baltic. The consequences for coastal environments can be enormous, impacting coastal fish species, birds, amplifying the effects of eutrophication etc.

A fisher with loans to pay may be willing to take a very large risk with the fish stocks or the environment to avoid having to close down operations. But how big a risk do we as a society want to take with fish stocks and the marine environment beyond next year? How much is sustainable?

That is something we ought to discuss more openly before the European Parliament decides if it wants to remove a safeguard or not, and what it wants to put it its place. Would it be enough to amend the 5% rule and accept a 30% probability of a stock entering the danger zone, or, as is the case in the Commission and Council proposal, simply remove the safeguard and accept that the sky is the limit?

Text: Charles Berkow