MEP Annie Schreijer-Pierik and MEP Werner Kuhn will chair a conference entitled “Cormorant: management needed across the borders" organised by the European Parliament Forum on Recreational Fisheries and Aquatic Environment, with the support of the European Anglers Alliance (EAA) and the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association (EFTTA).

The event will take place on the 9th of October in the European Parliament (room A5E3) from 18:30 to 20:00. 

In 2008 the European Parliament adopted the Resolution 'Towards a European Cormorant Management Plan’. In the resolution, the Parliament forwarded a number of sensible requests to the Commission and Member States to lessen the negative impact of cormorants in Europe. For example, the Parliament urged "the Commission and the Member States to promote the sustainable management of cormorant populations by means of increased scientific and administrative coordination, cooperation and communication, and to create appropriate conditions for the drafting of a Europe-wide cormorant population management plan;” 

Today, ten years later, only some of the Parliament’s requests have been met such as the publication of a “..more generalised guidance on the nature of the derogations allowed under Article 9(1) of the Wild Birds ; However, more could and should be done. The cormorant population is still on the increase, in particular in the Nordic region. Europe counts more than 2 million cormorants which eat more than 1 million kilo of fish every day. The birds appetite for fish is a cause of great problems in particular to fish populations in freshwater habitats and a threat to vulnerable fish ;

During the conference, the speakers will give more facts and details about the current situation and present some possible solutions. Today cormorant is managed locally. But scaring away this highly migratory species from one place creates problems in other places making clear that local management is not ;

A key message to be delivered at this event is that cross-border cooperation is a necessity to manage properly and cost efficiently the population – as the European Parliament already requested ten years ago.