The endangered European eel may only be fished in the North Sea and Atlantic for six months a year – and only by professional fishermen. At the same time, the EU ministers reduced the catches for herring and increased the quotas for other species, some significantly.
The protection of the endangered European eel is the focus of the new catches for 2023 for the North Sea and the Atlantic. The EU fisheries ministers agreed on a six-month closed period for the eel, albeit with restrictions, as the Ministry of Agriculture announced in Berlin.
The fixed EU-wide closed season is three months – for the Baltic Sea from October to December and for the North Sea from September to November. Member States must determine the other three months, taking into account eel migration. Recreational eel fishing will be completely banned in the maritime sector.
The catches for North Sea herring fall by nine percent to almost 165,400 tons across the EU, the German quota is around 37,400 tons. For all other important stocks in the North Sea – such as cod, haddock and saithe – the catches are increasing, for cod by as much as 60 percent.
The EU ministers had already reached an agreement on the quotas in the Baltic Sea for the coming year in mid-October. Fishermen are therefore still not allowed to catch herring and cod in large parts of the Baltic Sea in 2023 – it is only allowed there as bycatch.
The Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation Germany (BUND) criticized that it missed – despite the commitment of Germany and the European Commission for individual fish populations – “the urgently needed change of course to save fish populations and seas”. A third of all fish populations in the north-east Atlantic are currently overfished.
However, the BUND praised it as “strong” that Germany, despite strong headwinds from the federal states and from the part of the fishing and angling associations, had spoken out in favor of the proposal to extend the closed season for the eel to six months. “This is exactly the future-oriented change of course that we expect from Fisheries Minister Cem Özdemir.”
