Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2008)324 - Conservation of fisheries resources through technical measures - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2008)324 - Conservation of fisheries resources through technical measures. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2008)324  |
| date | 04-06-2008 |
- Grounds for and objectives of the proposal
This proposal intends to simplify the current regulatory framework concerning the conservation of fisheries resources through technical measures by replacing:
- Council Regulation (EC) No 850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms i.
- Council Regulation (EC) No 2549/2000 of 17 November 2000 establishing additional technical measures for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa) i.
Council Regulation (EC) No 850/98 embodies the current conditions for Community waters outside the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea relating to technical measures for the conservation of fish stocks by protection of juveniles of marine organisms. The technical measures define mesh sizes and other aspects of the structure of fishing gears, time periods and geographical areas within which defined types of fishing are prohibited or restricted and minimum landing sizes of marine organisms.
During the 2002 reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, the Commission and Council agreed to implement progressively recovery, management and long-term plans concerning fisheries resources of interest to the Community. Such plans have been established concerning most stocks of cod in Community waters, two stocks of hake, two stocks of nephrops, two stocks of sole as well as stocks of plaice and sole in the North Sea, whereby the conditions laid down in Regulation (EC) No 850/98 have been amended and/or augmented.
In addition, Regulation (EC) No 850/98 has been the subject of 10 amending Regulations not necessarily related to long-term plans.
It is necessary to incorporate all of these revised conditions in a comprehensive package of technical measures. This package of technical measures is intended to achieve a broad range of objectives. A key objective is the protection of juvenile fish and an important part of these measures is designed to limit their capture, for example, by measures to improve the selectivity of fishing gear or fixing certain closed seasons/areas. Other measures are intended to protect certain species or ecosystems by limiting fishing effort, for example, by the adoption of closures. The need to reduce discards is also reflected in the adoption of appropriate technical measures.
Furthermore, technical measures should be adapted to the context of the establishment of Regional Advisory Councils (RACs) by Council Decision of 19 July 2004 establishing Regional Advisory Councils under the Common Fisheries Policy i. A balance needs to be established between measures which are generally applicable in all areas and measures which are applicable specifically on a regional basis as defined by the Regional Advisory Council (RAC) Areas or in the waters off the coasts of the French departments of Guyana, Martinique, Guadalupe and Reunion that come under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of France.
Therefore the structure of the proposed Regulation provides for a Council Regulation based on Article 37 of the EC Treaty, which includes all common permanent measures for all areas, i.e. the guiding principles. The measures applicable in each of the RAC areas or in the waters off the coasts of the French departments of Guyana, Martinique, Guadalupe and Reunion that come under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of France, i.e. purely technical aspects of a regional nature, should then be implemented through separate Commission Regulations by Management Committee procedure, on the basis of the Council Regulation.
As a matter of procedure and timing, this approach requires that the Council Regulation is adopted before the regional Commission Regulations can be adopted.
In June 2004, under the initiative of the Irish Presidency, the Commission presented a Communication to the Council and the European Parliament: “Promoting more environmentally-friendly fishing methods: the role of technical conservation measures”[4]. Subsequently, the Council adopted conclusions on 21 June 2004, in which the Council invited the Commission to present a new proposal on technical measures in the Atlantic, to replace Council Regulation (EC) No 850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms i.
The 2006 – 2008 Action Plan for simplifying and improving the Common Fisheries Policy i (the Action Plan), sets out that priority is to be given to simplifying legislation concerning measures for the conservation of fish stocks through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms, currently set out in Regulation (EC) No 850/98 after consulting the Member States and the industry.
Simplification is one of the key objectives of the proposed regulation, taking into account the reactions from the Council, European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the stakeholders (the Committee for Fisheries and Aquaculture (ACFA) and the RACs) to the Action Plan.
On the basis of a non-paper on future technical measures in the Atlantic, the Commission has consulted the RACs concerned i during 2006, as well as ACFA in September 2005.
The objective of this proposal is not to change the level of ambition of the technical conservation measures, for instance by a major shift towards larger mesh sizes. Although the Commission considers that sustainable fishing, particularly for demersal fisheries, calls for a substantial increase in the selectivity of fishing gear, the priority is to establish a new set of simpler, clearer rules. Improvements in selectivity will then be brought about gradually through future amendments of these rules, in parallel with the general improvement in the conservation status of Community fish stocks to be achieved through other elements of conservation policy, such as multi-annual plans.
All provisions must be simple, understandable, and controllable and must have a positive effect on the conservation of the species, on the protection of the marine habitats or on the reduction of discards.
The proposal applies to commercial and recreational fishing in all European waters except for the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and in fisheries for highly migratory fish stocks in all waters, for which specific rules apply. It will bring together most of the existing technical measures in various Community regulations for the Atlantic and the North Sea, although a few measures that are currently in separate regulations will remain separate i.
The Commission believes that a regional approach should be favoured, since this would be more amenable to the involvement of the stakeholders in the process. The involvement of stakeholders is essential because it leads to commitment to the measures and ensure a greater likelihood of compliance of the adopted measures. Such regionalisation would not mean re-nationalisation of the technical measures.
The regulation will not alter the balance of competences between the Community and Member States as laid down in Council Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002.
The proposed Council Regulation concentrates on measures that would be expected to be permanent. It would also, however, lay down the procedures to be applied when dealing with measures that would be expected to evolve rather quickly and with measures that are very technical. For the latter, the Regulation should favour the application of a procedure for adoption of new rules through comitology procedure. This approach is intended to meet the concern of Member States to reduce or eliminate interim technical measures from the annual TAC and quota regulation, while taking account of the fact that the application of technical measures is very often a matter of urgency.
A common priority for the Member States, the European Parliament and stakeholders is the need to evaluate, before and after their implementation, the consequences of technical measures. The effectiveness of many of the provisions under Regulation (EC) No 850/98 has never been evaluated, and those measures have remained in force regardless of their value for conservation.
A fundamental principle will be that the measures provided for in this Regulation should be evaluated after a certain time to reassess the need for them. Another guiding principle will be that when new and substantial measures are proposed (such as significant increases in mesh sizes), the Commission will carry out, if the data available allow it, a prior evaluation of their likely effects.
- Existing provisions in the area of the proposal
Council Regulation (EC) No 850/98 and subsequent amendments.
Council Regulation (EC) No 2549/2000.
- Consistency with the other policies and objectives of the Union
The proposal will serve the objectives of the CFP.
- Consultation of interested parties
Two non-papers which set out the intentions of the Commission in relation to the revision, codification and simplification of Regulation (EC) No 850/98 were prepared by the Commission services for the consultation of interested parties. The proposal is based on several consultations with Member States as well as representatives for stakeholders in the North Sea RAC, the North Western Waters RAC and the South Western Waters RAC.
Among the consulted parties there was a general agreement on the need for simplification and harmonisation but also on the need to take into account the regional characteristics of the fisheries and a fisheries based approach as well as to put together in one regulation all technical measures. Furthermore there was a strong request for clarification as well as for the need of an improvement of selectivity of fishing gears for bottom trawling. All of these comments have been taken into account in the proposal.
The Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) has provided advice on the closed areas i and on the influence of the main factors affecting the codend selectivity i. Gear technology experts have met in the framework of the bilateral fisheries Agreement between the EU and Norway to discuss the selectivity in the North Sea i.
The report of the ICES-FAO Working Group on Fish Technology and Fish Behaviour (WGFTFB) on EU Regulations on technical measures has been taken into account i.
An expert meeting with netmakers on technical measures was held in Brussels on 3 July 2007.
The Commission carried out an Impact assessment of the Proposal, resulting in a report which will be accessible on the web site of DG Fisheries and Maritime Affairs within the European Commission.
Simplification is a key objective of the new proposed regulation. The specific operational aims are as follows:
- to incorporate all revised conditions and amendments in a comprehensive package of technical measures which is easy to understand, control and enforce;
- to establish a balance between measures which are generally applicable in all areas and measures which are applicable specifically on a regional basis as defined by the Regional Advisory Council (RAC) Areas.
The scope of the proposal is not to change the substance of related legislation extensively, but to change the legislative approach and therefore the likely environmental, social and economic impacts are modest.
In the Impact Assessment report the following options were considered, and the proposal corresponds to the option set out under the third indent:
- Status quo option: this approach means taking no specific steps to simplify or modify the technical measures legislation for Atlantic and the North Sea at this stage and continuing with fisheries management in its current form. This option had already been debated in the Council, which concluded that a new proposal was necessary and called on the Commission to propose, after consultation with the stakeholders, a new regulation for technical conservation measures.
- Simplification only option: this option would simplify technical measures and harmonise them across the board, without taking into account the regional or other specific considerations. Not adapting the measures to the specific local needs and the bottom-up approach, would achieve no improvement of effectiveness of the technical measures. By not promoting more environmentally-friendly fishing methods i.e. discards policy, such a proposal would go against the Commission action plan 2006-2008 for improvement of the CFP. This is the reason why this option was discarded from the outset and not been analysed further.
- Simplification and regionalisation option: this option proposes a new legislative package, which not only simplifies current complex rules but also introduces specific provisions for each RAC area, reflecting regional differences. Such a legislative proposal is a reply to the request from the Council to review the technical measures rules with a view to their simplification and adopting a more regionalised approach in order to improve their effectiveness. A comprehensive and coherent package with the right balance between measures generally applicable in all areas and those specific to the localised RAC areas will be proposed, namely one framework Council Regulation with general principles and provisions, and the complementary Commission Regulations with specific technical rules for each RAC area. Such a revision of technical measures will comply with the Commission action plan 2006-08 for simplification and improvement of the CFP.
3)
Contents
- Summary of the proposed action
Replacement and repeal of Council Regulation (EC) No 850/98 and repeal of Council Regulation (EC) No 2549/2000 .
- Legal basis
Article 37 of the EC Treaty.
- Subsidiarity principle
This proposal falls within the scope of the CFP, which is the exclusive competence of the Community. The subsidiarity principle does not apply.
- Proportionality principle
Pursuant to Article 2 i of Council Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002 of 20 December 2002 on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources under the Common Fisheries Policy i, the CFP shall ensure exploitation of living aquatic resources that provides sustainable economic, environmental and social conditions. For this purpose the Community shall apply the precautionary approach in taking measures designed to protect and conserve living aquatic resources, to provide for their sustainable exploitation and to minimise the impact of fishing activities on marine-ecosystems.
According to Article 4 i of Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002, to achieve this objective, the Council Shall establish Community measures governing access to waters and resources and the sustainable pursuit of fishing activities.
Article 4(2)(g) of Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002 further establishes that these measures may, in particular, include measures for each stock or group of stocks to limit fishing mortality and the environmental impact of fishing activities by adopting technical measures.
As the proposal will serve the objectives of the CFP it is found to comply with the principle of proportionality.
- Choice of instruments
Proposed instrument: Council Regulation
Other means would not be adequate, for the following reasons: the proposal concerns replacement and repeal of a Council Regulation.
4)
The proposal has no implications for the Community budget.