The Baltic plan is the first of its kind – a landmark. Now that the co-legislators have found an agreement on this kind of plans, sustainable long-term management plans can be proposed for other marine regions as well. The new generation of multi-annual plans will be instrumental to deploying the new Common Fisheries Policy and particularly to realising its most ambitions objective – stopping waste and using all the fish that is caught rather than discarding it. The plans will also facilitate decentralised decision making for technical measures.

Another positive note is that the European Parliament decided to transpose into EU legislation the ICCAT Bluefin tuna plan for the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean. This will undoubtedly uphold the recovery of the stock while providing legal certainty to operators. The Commission welcomes in particular the constructive attitude of the co-legislators during the transposition process.