Conservation of fisheries resources through technical measures: transitional technical measures from 1 January 2010 to 30 June 2011

The Council made substantial progress on a draft regulation on technical measures to better conserve fish stocks, to cut down discards and to protect vulnerable marine habitats on Europe's Atlantic coast and in the North Sea and the Skagerrak and Kattegat.

Together with catch and effort limitations, technical measures play a key role in ensuring sustainable fisheries. In particular, they help to protect juvenile fish in order to reduce the threat to future yields.

The Council has agreed to hand over this issue to the Spanish Presidency, as it will have to be concluded under the co-decision procedure.

As Regulation (EC) 850/98 is still in force, certain technical measures will continue to apply while the Council did reach political agreement on transitional technical measures for 2010, extending for 18 months the transitional technical measures contained in Annex III to the 2009 TACs and Quotas Regulation.

Due to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on 1 December 2009, the proposal will be adopted by written procedure after finalisation by the legal/linguistic experts.