Germany wants EU to extend exemption for small-scale herring fishing

Germany plans to push for an exemption for small-scale herring fishing in the western Baltic Sea to be extended, Agriculture Minister Alois Rainer said on Monday ahead of EU negotiations to determine fishing quotas for next year. 

The European Commission has proposed to reduce the permitted herring bycatch from 788 metric tons in 2026 to 437 tons in 2027 in a bid to protect herring stocks that remain well below sustainable levels.

Targeted fishing for herring is largely banned in the western Baltic Sea, but an exception exists for fishermen who catch herring passively close to the coast, for example using gill nets.

Brussels aims to scrap this exception for 2027. A similar proposal last year, however, failed to receive the required backing by EU member countries.

A ban would affect the small-scale coastal fishing sector.

Germany's Rainer said the commission's proposal regarding herring fishing "was going too far."

"Maintaining the exemptions as they currently stand is very, very important to me - but above all to our fishing industry," he said before the start of a two-day meeting with fellow EU agriculture ministers in Luxembourg.

Negotiations on EU fishing quotas tend to be difficult and can drag on for hours into the night.

Rainer said it was important to reconcile two objectives, "the recovery of stocks in the Baltic Sea and the preservation of the economic basis for German coastal fisheries."

He warned that fishermen’s livelihoods would be at risk should western herring stocks disappear.