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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The sixth meeting of the Working Group of the Black Sea (WGBS) took place on 15 and 16 June 2017 in Constanta, Romania. The meeting reviewed the work carried out during the 2016–2017 intersession in relation to stock assessment, management of selected fisheries and data collection. It also debated on the activities launched in the context of the mid-term strategy towards the sustainability of Mediterranean and Black Sea fisheries adopted by the Commission in 2016. The WGBS formulated advice on the: i) status of Black Sea stocks, whereby all main commercial stocks assessed but sprat were considered in overexploitation; ii) management of turbot, including assessment of management scenarios in reply to recommendations adopted by the Commission, and piked dogfish; iii) data collection and quality indicators. The WGBS also addressed the issue of the lack of relevant data to be submitted by countries and agreed that the precautionary approach would be used in the absence of up-to-date and/or comprehensive data. It also underlined the required contribution of the Black Sea region to the GFCM Forum on Fisheries Science and acknowledged the launch of the BlackSea4Fish project, including the nomination of a coordinator (Mr Violin Raykov) for the first year, welcoming as well the establishment of a subregional technical unit based in Burgas (Bulgaria) to backstop the project’s work. Finally, the WGBS agreed upon its work plan for 2017–2019 in support of mid-term strategy activities that would be among others coordinated through the BlackSea4Fish project. The WGBS also renewed its Bureau as follows: Mr Simion Nicolaev (Romania) as coordinator, Mr Galin Nikolov (Bulgaria) as vice-coordinator and Mr Ilhan Aydin (Turkey) as second vice-coordinator.