Resignation of two Spanish scientists from the STECF 22-01 expert working group

Subject: Resignation of two Spanish scientists from the STECF 22-01 expert working group

I have been informed that two Spanish scientists have resigned from the STECF 22-01 expert working group on ‘Closure areas in the Western Mediterranean’. These are experts known for their wide experience in their field, specialists in Mediterranean fishing grounds, who have, however, decided to resign from this working group because the conditions there will not allow for an open and balanced scientific debate.

What is especially alarming are reports that the research lacks objectivity and scientific rigour, owing to incorrect use of data and flawed methodologies and the fact that determinant environmental factors are not taken into account when measurements are taken. All this may cause the scientific rigour and the methodology used in this working group to be called into question.

In light of this:

1. Can the Commission explain what led to these scientists resigning from the working group?

2. What methodology did the Commission follow in preparing the working group’s mandate?

3. Why was Spain’s oft-made request to evaluate the measures employed not taken into account in the mandate, while an evaluation of management measures that had been rejected when the Regulation was adopted was included?

Answer given by Mr Sinkevičius on behalf of the European Commission (19 April 2022)

The Commission has indeed noted the decision of two Spanish experts to withdraw from the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) working group ‘Closure areas in the Western Mediterranean’. The Commission regrets that the experts chose to leave the scientific debate, while they had other avenues to express their concerns.

STECF is established as independent and transparent scientific forum, central to the delivery of state-of-the art scientific advice to support the common fisheries policy. The working arrangements of the Committee provide the opportunity for an open scientific debate taking into account the views of all involved scientists.

The expert working group (EWG) and its terms of reference (ToR) were agreed by consensus during the STECF plenary meeting in November 2021 (1) and led to further preparatory work with the participation of all scientists and external observers on the first day of the meeting. At no point in time there was any indication of the issues preventing the participants of EWG from debating openly or expressing their views or of possible disagreements that would lead to the decision of withdrawal from the proceedings.

The Commission trusts that the resignation of the experts will prove to be a misunderstanding and that it will see Spanish experts attend the next STECF EWG meeting where the combination of management tools under the multi-annual plan for the Western Mediterranean (2) will be further explored by experts from all three concerned Member States. This is particularly important to ensure that the results of this work forms the basis of further fisheries management decisions in the Mediterranean.

⋅1∙ A summary of the discussions is publicly available on the STECF website : https://stecf.jrc.ec.europa.eu/plen2103

⋅2∙ Regulation (EU) 2019/ 1022 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 establishing a multiannual plan for the fisheries exploiting demersal

stocks in the western Mediterranean Sea — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019R1022&from=EN