Exemption for small boats at stake
Speaking before the two-day meeting, Rainer, a member of the CSU, said the Commission's proposed restrictions on western Baltic herring went too far. He said preserving the existing exemptions was particularly important to German fishers.
Most targeted herring fishing is already prohibited in the western Baltic bordering Germany. Boats under 12 meters long can still target the fish if they use passive gear, such as gillnets. Outside that exemption, herring can be landed only as unintended bycatch.
For 2027, the Commission would eliminate the small-boat exemption and allow only unavoidable bycatch. It proposes a catch limit of 437 metric tons, down from 788 metric tons in 2026. Ministers rejected a similar proposal last year.
Rainer said stock recovery and the economic survival of German coastal fishing needed to be pursued together. He warned that losing access to western Baltic herring would threaten fishers' livelihoods.
Conflicting views on the remaining catch
The Commission bases its proposal on the stock's position below Blim, the limit reference point for spawning-stock biomass, and says the restrictions follow the Baltic multiannual plan. Its August 24, 2026, proposal, COM(2026) 437 final, cites advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) recommending no catches in either 2027 or 2028, marking the ninth consecutive year of zero-catch advice.
ICES estimates that spawning-stock biomass in 2026 is just 56% of Blim. Recruitment has been historically low for about a decade, and ICES expects biomass to remain below the limit at least through 2028, even without any fishing.
Rainer nevertheless said the Thünen Institute did not consider the exemptions a threat to recovery. Christopher Zimmermann, who heads the Thünen Institute for Baltic Sea Fisheries in Rostock, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the most recently permitted catch was too small to have a measurable effect on the stock's development.
The conservation group Nabu takes a different view. Its head of marine conservation, Kim Cornelius Detloff, said every metric ton of herring ready to spawn mattered given the stock's severe depletion and the additional pressures from the climate crisis. He argued that the exemptions for passive herring fishing were no longer appropriate.
An earlier assessment had been more hopeful. According to a March 2026 statement from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state government, the Thünen Institute thought a small regular herring fishery might be possible again from 2027, initially at about 1,000 metric tons. That forecast preceded ICES's zero-catch advice for 2027.
A shrinking quota and fishing fleet
Germany's western Baltic herring quota has remained around 435 metric tons since 2022, compared with 14,496 metric tons in 2016, according to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern government's March statement. That represents a decline of roughly 97% within a few years.
The same statement cited provisional 2025 figures showing 144 full-time and 123 part-time fishers active in the state, substantially fewer than in earlier years.
Rainer also pointed to fuel support for coastal fishers. Germany has reimbursed them 21 cents per liter of diesel to help maintain competitiveness. The aid was recently extended through the end of 2026 because of high diesel prices.
Increases proposed for other Baltic stocks
The negotiations cover herring, cod, plaice, salmon and sprat. Despite the proposed western herring restrictions, the Commission's package would increase total Baltic catch opportunities to about 543,000 metric tons, 35.3% above the final 2026 level, according to its explanatory memorandum.
The proposal would raise the central Baltic herring allocation by 49% to 143,860 metric tons and the Bothnian herring allocation by 3% to 57,308 metric tons. Catch opportunities would also increase by 11% for Gulf of Riga herring and by 44% for sprat.
Cod bycatch limits would move in the opposite direction: eastern Baltic cod would fall by 51% to 211 metric tons, while western Baltic cod would drop by 88% to 31 metric tons.
Quota negotiations often continue late into the night and sometimes into the following day. The Council is scheduled to seek a political agreement at the October 26-27 meeting, with formal adoption expected later in November.
