European Union, Norway and the United Kingdom - fisheries consultations: agreed records 2024

Agreed records of consultations from meetings of delegations from the United Kingdom, Norway and the European Union, held between November and December 2023 on the joint management of shared North Sea stocks.


13 Jointly-managed stocks

13.1 The Delegations agreed, as an ad hoc approach for 2024, to consider cod, haddock, herring, plaice, saithe and whiting to be jointly managed stocks. Each Party’s share of each stock for 2024 is shown in Table 1.

13.2 The Delegations acknowledged that, although all Parties have introduced legislation that prohibits most forms of discarding of fish, discards remain a serious problem and are contributing to the sub-optimal utilisation of fisheries resources.

13.3 The Delegations agreed to work towards improving exploitation patterns and reducing unwanted catches and discards through the use of technical measures to improve the selectivity of fishing gear; closed seasons and areas; as well as any other appropriate measures. They acknowledged the usefulness of complementary technical measures to achieve those objectives.

13.4 The Delegations agreed to apply the inter-annual quota flexibility (IAF) scheme as set out in Annex II. For 2024, the IAF scheme will apply to haddock, herring, plaice, saithe and whiting.

13.5 The Delegations agreed to apply the inter-annual quota flexibility (IAF) scheme as set out in Annex II. For 2024, the IAF scheme will apply to haddock, herring, plaice, saithe and whiting.

13.6 In light of the de minimis and high survivability exemptions contained in its landing obligation, the UK Delegation informed the EU Delegation and the Norwegian Delegation of its intention to continue in 2024 to adjust from the UK quotas the estimated amounts of the discards.

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