European Union and the United Kingdom - fisheries consultations: written record 2022

TAC deductions due to discard exemptions

a) The Delegations agreed to the following on TAC deductions in relation to the management of exemptions from the landing obligation in 2022:

i. The Delegations exchanged information on the discard exemptions applicable in their respective waters, taking note of differences in place due to exemptions that apply unilaterally in each Party’s waters and, in some cases, to the different scope of the exemption.

ii. The Delegations explained and confirmed the intention to maintain their identical calculation methods for the purpose of calculating the level of deductions to be applied to their TAC share in relation to the discard exemptions adopted.

iii. To ensure that exempt discards do not constitute catches that are in excess of agreed TACs, appropriate deductions will be applied to the relevant TAC shares. The differences in exemptions between Parties will result in corresponding differences in the deductions applied to the Parties’ TAC shares.

iv. The UK Delegation indicated their intention to make use of EU discard exemptions in 2022 and notified the EU on 17 November 2021 of modifications of the UK discard exemptions for 2022. The EU will inform the UK in good time of their intentions to make use of the UK exemptions.

v. The Delegations exchanged information on their plans to publish in a public domain the TAC deductions to account for the exemptions in force in 2022.

b) The Delegations agreed to jointly request ICES to include discard survival estimates in the ICES advice for shared stocks in the future. The Parties also reconfirmed their commitment under paragraph 11.b of the 2021 Written Record.