It is one of the most restrictive stances we have had. The quotas should not increase from this year, and then we have historically quite low quotas, says Peter Kullgren after a meeting in the Riksdag's EU Committee.
There, he has received support for his line from the Christian Democrats and the Center Party ahead of the EU meeting on October 21-22.
He says that the government is driving this line to increase the stocks of herring and sprat in the Bothnian Sea, the Bay of Bothnia, and in the central Baltic Sea.
The EU Commission has proposed a doubling of sprat fishing in the central Baltic Sea compared to last year's quotas.
Pause for industrial fishing
The Social Democrats, the Left Party, and the Green Party, on the other hand, want Sweden to stop industrial fishing.
The situation for sprat is catastrophic. The stock risks collapsing, says Andrea Andersson-Tay, environmental policy spokesperson for the Left Party.
The Green Party means that the Commission's proposal even contravenes the EU's own fisheries laws.
The Social Democrats want a recovery pause for large-scale industrial fishing of herring and sprat, while the Green Party and the Left Party demand an immediate stop without specifying how long it should apply.
When you drive that line, it is highly likely that the quotas will become higher, says Peter Kullgren.
He believes that if an EU country takes such a stance, it will be overridden in the negotiations. Decisions are made in bulk, not species by species, and with a qualified majority, he adds.
If we drive a line that is perceived as apart from all others, then we will not be particularly interesting with our 2.3 percent of the EU's population.
The opposition points out that the negotiations take place behind closed doors and no one knows if or how Sweden is trying to influence other countries.
"Save our inland sea"
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) demands that the quotas be set lower than what the EU Commission has proposed, and fishing should "under no circumstances" exceed the Commission's ceiling. Sweden must put a stop to overfishing to "save our inland sea", according to WWF.
Kullgren says that most EU countries want to be close to the maximum level of what the international advisory organization ICES has proposed.
My goal is that we should be at the table, that we should draw the quotas as low as possible, says he.
