Scoping, evaluation and/or assessment: IA Bay of Biscay sole, Scope IA new plans for Eastern & Western Baltic cod, Scope historic evaluations of existing plans for North Sea cod, Kattegat cod, West of Scotland cod, and Irish Sea cod.

The meeting is open to observers - i.e. stakeholders (nominated by RACs), fisheries managers (nominated by the Commission or the Member states) and scientists (nominated by ICES). Observers participation will only be limited by the capacity of the venue. The rules and conditions under which observers attend is provided below. For clarification of attendance please contact the chairman. Observers must register.
Please read also the Protocol for Observers.

Please Note: Only those receiving an invitation letter to attend a meeting as observers will be granted access to the meeting. If you are interested to attend the meeting as observer please make yourself familiar with the rules and procedures for observer registration/invitation including the protocol for observers.

Deadline for the expression of interest to attend a meeting is 20 working days before the start of a meeting. Those experts who register after the deadline will be given lower priority depending on the number of registered participants and seats available.
The process for selecting participants for STECF meetings is as follows: the chairman, the coordinator the focal point and the STECF secretariat contact interested organisations and inform them of the upcoming meeting and invite suitable candidates to register their interest. As the meeting date approaches the secretariat takes the list of people who have registered and forwards it to the DG-MARE focal point, chairman and coordinator. The participants are chosen from the list based on their experience, but also in order to create a balanced group of participants (not too few, not too many) that covers the relevant geographical areas as well as areas of expertise. The list is published and an invitation letter is prepared. Only once an expert has received an invitation letter can travel be arranged.

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Hold a meeting 28 February to 4 March in Copenhagen, for scoping and preparation of Impact Assessments for new management plans, and historic Evaluations of existing plans. The meeting should involve Observers (Commission staff, Managers, Stakeholders) and Scientists dealing with Economy and Biology and should prepare for work on the following stocks:

Impact Assessments for new plans for

• Bay of Biscay sole

Scoping for Impact Assessments for new plans

• Eastern and Western Baltic Cod

Scoping for historic Evaluations of existing plans

• North Sea cod,
• Kattegat cod
• West of Scotland cod
• Irish Sea cod

Clarification of ICES advice on NS whiting

For the Scoping the meeting should to determine the workload required and to reconcile this with available resources, to arrive at an effective detailed plan of what is needed to carry out the technical work that will underpin the required Impact Assessments and Evaluations. For North Sea cod the review should take account of any specific request from Norway (either relayed by the European Commission or submitted to ICES), and STECF guidelines. For the Baltic cod the meeting should concentrate on Impact Assessment for Western Baltic Cod, only amending the Eastern Baltic Cod plan if it is thought to need amendment in context of combined management with the Western Stock. Separate reports will be prepared the Impact Assessment on Bay of Biscay sole and scoping for all other cod plans. Reports should taking into account of the generic ToR from STECF report SG-MOS 10-01 and annex from SG –MOS 09-02.(See docs below)

For the Evaluation of NS cod plan the meeting should consider the reporting requirements of STECF and ICES and the information required by Commission and Norway (see below) and propose the best approach to provide the reporting requirement for all concerned. As a deliberate policy, in addition of scientists to be invited by the STECF to join this meeting as external experts, this EWG 11-01 will be open to scientists appointed or nominated by ICES.

The meeting should also examine work requirements and the appropriate expert group to answer the request to ICES from Norway (see below) concerning clarification of ICES advice on exceptions to 0.3 as the target fishing mortality rate for whiting in subarea IV (North Sea) and division VIId (Eastern Channel) specifically: the level and number of years for which recruitment is considered poor to trigger action; the lower level to which fishing mortality should be reduced when required; and the rate of reduction to the lower level in the event of poor recruitment.

• Generic Approach and ToR Annex A SGMOS 10-01
• Impact assessment outline Annex A SGMOS 09-02
• Request to ICES by Norway and EU - MP for cod
• Request to ICES by Norway and EU NS whiting
• WDs 1-3 JRC Technical Note
• WD 4 BoB sole selection pattern
• WD 5 Bio-economic evaluation
• Declarations of interest

• 11-04_EWG 11-01 - Bay of Discay Sole Impact Assessment_JRC64947
• 11-04_EWG 11-02 - ICES report - Scoping cod plans_JRC64951