Baltic Ministers go to the casino. Will their gamble pay off?

It is easy to place a bet when you are playing with other people’s money. One may wonder why they should be prudent when the downside risk is paid by someone else. 

With the Council electing to allocate almost 97% of the total Baltic commercial catch to herring and sprat, the vast majority destined for export to fishmeal and fishoil factories and then exported again to outside the EU, it is clear on whose behalf the gamble was made.  

The EU’s track record of successfully managing our Baltic fish stocks has been abysmal. Most stocks are at or close to record low levels. Since 2016 – when the Baltic Sea Multiannual plan was adopted, stocks are down by over 800.000 tonnes and annual catches have declined by over 100.000 tonnes. The most commercially important stock, cod, has been closed since 2019. The cod are still starving due to a lack of prey availability while their predators, seals and cormorants, are left unmanaged.

In the small-scale coastal fleet wages have stagnated and catches are poor. Demand outstrips supply for our products and yet Ministers have once again decided against a growth agenda. If the Council  was a company the CEO would have been fired long ago.

Change

This year there has been a marked shift from the European Commission. Since Costas Kadis was appointed as Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans he has consistently highlighted that reversing the trend of decline in the Baltic is a priority. His message seems to have partially gotten through. 

For all four herring stocks, as well as for both cod and salmon stocks the decisions taken by Council could and should have been better. However, at the very least they mark a break in the trend of the most destructive short-term tendencies witnessed to date, which have contributed to low revenue, widespread underemployment and poor future prospects for the fishery.

However, the big decision this year was for sprat. The Commission proposal was for a rollover of the quota but the Council elected to exceed the TAC by 45%. Regrettably the blame for this decision lands squarely at the door of scientists, who made dubious assumptions in their stock assessment. 

If their forecast is correct the sprat stock will increase in size by an unprecedented 88% in 2026 followed by another 13% growth in 2027. When Ministers are promised such  incredible growth while at the same time being able to significantly increase catches it is no surprise that they gambled. A wiser decision would have been to follow the Commission proposal and then reevaluate later in the year once more data was available that would confirm the scientists’ assumptions around recruitment and mean-weight-at-age. As they say in Luxembourg, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.