On Tuesday morning, the EU’s fisheries ministers were able to report the results of the negotiations on fishing quotas for 2025.
For the Swedish part, it is above all the quotas for sturgeon in the Baltic Sea area that are most interesting because sturgeon catches along the coast have been poor for several years and researchers have warned of a collapse of the stocks.
Despite the warning signals, the EU ministers agreed to follow the EU Commission’s line, which means an increase in the Gulf of Bothnia from 55,000 tonnes to just over 66,000 tonnes and in the central Baltic Sea from 40,368 to nearly 84,000 tonnes.
The flounder fishing doubles
This means that fishing in the Bothnian Sea and the Baltic Sea, contrary to what many researchers believe, will be able to increase by 108 percent.
On the other hand, the quotas for cod as bycatch in the Baltic Sea, which are already at low levels, are being reduced.
The quota for salmon in the Gulf of Bothnia is also significantly reduced after a summer when most of the rivers where the salmon spawn had a worryingly low return migration of fish.
Disappointment and criticism
MEP Isabella Lövin (MP) calls the whole thing “catastrophic”.
– We don’t know what the situation is with the current in the Baltic Sea, she tells SVT.
Even Karl Åke Wallin, chairman of the Coastal Fishermen of the Bothnian Sea, is deeply disappointed by today’s EU decision.
– They apparently do not intend to have any fishing left for the next generation.