European Parliament calls – AGAIN ! - for an EU Great Cormorant management plan

56. Calls on the Commission to prepare a proposal for an EU great cormorant management plan that could properly and definitively address the problem the aquaculture sector has been facing for many years, based on the best available scientific advice and experiences and practices already tested in Member States; urges that the plan be designed for the effective mitigation and control of their effect on aquaculture farms, with a view to reducing their economic, environmental and social impact on production and biodiversity; highlights that the plan should include a list of eligible measures on preventive coexistence solutions and adequate compensation for losses and measures, financed with EU or national funds; insists that financial support for tailor-made research aimed at finding and testing preventive measures is key, but also for allowing proper monitoring, including recording and analysing the effects of the measures undertaken; calls on the Member States to implement those measures on a local case-by-case basis and report to the Commission every year on the implementation of the plan, including the effectiveness of the measures chosen; calls on the Commission to evaluate the EU great cormorant management plan every five years and report to Parliament; urges the Commission to prepare, as an immediate action, a guidance document on how to apply derogations provided for in Article 9 of the Birds Directive, and to assess the need to modify the current legislation where preventive measures have proven insufficient and the financial and social impact does not allow for coexistence solutions, according to the best scientific advice;