Glass eel fishing can continue, despite European Commission’s opposition

EU fisheries ministers have decided to maintain glass eel fishing for 2023, in a decision that has been welcomed by the industry but goes against calls from the European Commission and environmental organisations to ban the practice. Read the original French article here. EU ministers agreed to the fishing quotas for 2023 after two days of negotiations on Tuesday (13 December). Quotas regarding eels – particularly, the expensive glass eel kind, for which fishing has become increasingly controversial – were also agreed upon. “This agreement is satisfactory for France,” said the state secretary for the sea Hervé Berville at the end of the negotiations on Tuesday. “The result is positive for Spain,” echoed Spanish fisheries minister Luis Planas. The Commission, however, is very unlikely to find the agreement satisfactory. At the end of October, the EU’s executive body said it favoured a total ban on glass eel fishing in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters based on a study from the ...