Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry responds to unfounded deduction in salmon quota by European Commission
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the European Commission disagree on the interpretations concerning scientific salmon fishery and the deduction in the salmon quota by the European Commission. By the transfer of quotas that has now been made, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry ensures that coastal fishers will not suffer from the unfounded deduction in Finland’s salmon quota by the European Commission.
The European Commission has issued a Regulation by which it deducts 3,162 individuals from Finland’s salmon quota for the main basin of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia for this year. The Commission justifies the deduction by an interpretation according to which Finland would not have carried out scientific salmon fishery in compliance with EU law.
According to the EU rules, directed salmon fishery was prohibited in the northern parts of the Baltic Sea, the Åland Sea, the Archipelago Sea and the Bothnian Sea in 2024. However, the EU rules allowed Finland to carry out scientific salmon fishery, which the Commission’s Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) considered in March 2024 to be scientifically justified, with certain specifications and amendments. Based on this, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry carried out scientific salmon fishery in summer 2024 to collect scientific data that was lacking in full compliance with both the recommendations of the STECF’ report and the EU rules.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has also provided information and reported about the implementation and results of scientific salmon fishery. The results show that only 0–3 individuals were caught in Finland’s coastal areas representing the Ljungan salmon population that is in need of protection. This means that salmon fishery on the Finnish coast did not endanger this salmon population, and the results also showed that the prohibition on fishing for 2024 was unfounded. In 2024 the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea ICES also considered that the status of the Ljungan salmon population did not support the need to prohibit salmon fishery in the sea areas concerned.
However, the Commission requested, without justification, the STECF to produce a new report, which was completed in 2024. At that point scientific salmon fishery had in practice been stopped, which the Commission was also aware of.
Based on the STECF’s report published in July, the Commission considers that scientific salmon fishery would have been practised in violation of the prohibition concerning directed salmon fishery and, because of this, by the Regulation adopted on 30 April 2025 deducted the whole catch from scientific salmon fishery (3,162 individuals) from the Finnish salmon quote for 2025. The Regulation was adopted pursuant to Article 105 of the Fisheries Control Regulation (1224/2009) that is intended for situations where a Member State has exceeded its fishing quota.
Ministry considers action for annulment and, to strengthen salmon populations, national restrictions on coastal fishery
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry considers that the deduction in the quota is not legally justified because in 2024 salmon fishing by Finland accounted for only 69% of its salmon quota for the main basin of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia. Article 105 is intended for situations where the quota is exceeded (overfishing), but now the Commission is interpreting the Article in a way that, if accepted, would lead to a highly problematic and negative precedent, both for Finland and the other Member States. This is why Finland is seriously considering that it may bring an action for annulment to the European Court of Justice to repeal the Regulation.
This means that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry cannot accept the unfounded deduction of the Finnish salmon quota or the grounds for the deduction presented by the Commission.
In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry cannot accept that Finnish coastal fishers would suffer from this unfounded deduction. With a quota transfer between Member States, Finland has now added 3,162 individuals to Finland’s salmon quota for the main basin of the Baltic Sea and Gulf of Bothnia. Through this, Finland’s salmon quota will stay the same (8,989 individuals) as was confirmed by the Council of the EU for 2025 before the deduction made by the Commission and on the same level Finland is committed to by its national decisions.
Besides these measures, a proposal of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is currently being circulated for comments concerning national measures to regulate coastal salmon fishery. The aim is to support the migration of wild salmon and their access to rivers in situations where the status of the salmon populations is very worrying. The cause for the decline in salmon populations is the weaker survival during the sea migration for reasons other than fishery. The Natural Resources Institute Finland is studying the reasons for this in a project funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Inquiries:
Risto Lampinen, Senior Ministerial Adviser, Head of the Unit for Fisheries Industry, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, +358 295 162 458, risto.lampinen@gov.fi
