6 Balancing fishing capacity and opportunities
within the Community
| (26275)
5182/05
COM(04) 799
| Annual Report from the Commission on Member States' efforts during 2003 to achieve a sustainable balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities
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| (26276)
5184/05
SEC(04) 1559
| Commission Staff Working Document: Annex to the Annual Report from the Commission on Member States' efforts during 2003 to achieve a sustainable balance between fishing capacity and fishing opportunities
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| Legal base | — |
| Document originated | 14 December 2004
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| Deposited in Parliament | 14 January 2005
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| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 31 January 2005
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | See para 6.6 below
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared, but relevant to the debate already recommended in European Standing Committee A on total allowable catches (TACs) for 2005
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Background
6.1 It has long been one of the aims of the Common Fisheries Policy
(CFP) to achieve a better balance between the capacity of the
Member States' fishing fleets and the catch opportunities available
to them, and, until recently, this was achieved by a series of
Multi-Annual Guidance Plans (MAGPs), which existed in various
forms from 1987 to 2002 in order to control the size of fishing
fleets across the Community. However, as a result of the reform
of the CFP in 2002, those Plans have now been replaced by the
provisions of Council Regulation (EC) No. 2371/2002,[19]
which (together with the detailed rules in Commission Regulation
(EC) No. 1438/2003)[20]
establishes an entry and exit regime for fishing fleets along
with overall capacity limits.
6.2 In particular, the new regime requires a Member
State to ensure that entries to its fishing fleet take place only
when a corresponding capacity is removed, so as to ensure that
the overall fleet capacity matches the level of fishing opportunities
which exist. Additional penalties are applied if entries take
place with public aid, with the reduction in capacity required
in such cases being 35% larger than for normal entries. Also,
any capacity which leaves a Member State's fishing fleet with
public aid (i.e. under decommissioning schemes) cannot be replaced,
such exits thus leading to a corresponding permanent reduction
in the capacity ceilings for the fishing fleet concerned. Those
Member States which exceed their capacity ceilings are obliged
to reduce the fishing effort of their fleets down to the level
which would be expected had they complied with those ceilings,
and their eligibility for Community financial assistance under
the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG) may be
suspended.
The current document
6.3 Under the new arrangements, the Commission is
required each year to present to the European Parliament and to
the Council a summary of the results of efforts to achieve a sustainable
balance between fishing capacity and opportunities, based on a
report from each Member State, and accompanied by the opinions
of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries
(STECF) and the Committee for Fisheries and Aquaculture established
under Article 30(1) of Council Regulation 2371/2002.
6.4 This report is the first to be provided under
these arrangements, and deals with the action taken by Member
States in 2003. The Commission's overall view is that all Member
States have complied with their fleet capacity ceilings during
that period with two exceptions —
Belgium and Italy exceeded their overall tonnage ceilings, whilst
Italy also exceeded its overall engine power ceiling. However,
the Commission also notes that there were some discrepancies between
the data held on national fleet registers and that on the Community
Fleet Register, partly caused by the introduction of a new format
for the reporting of data to the Register, which it says should
be eliminated for the next annual report. In addition, the STECF
comments that, whilst the report provides information on the application
of the fleet entry/exit regime in Member States as regards fleet
size, it does not address the requirement to assess the equilibrium
between fishing fleet capacity and fishing opportunities, and
calls for such an analysis to be developed for the next annual
report.
The Government's view
6.5 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 31 January 2005,
the Minister for Nature Conservation and Fisheries at the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Ben Bradshaw) says
that the Government believes in the key aim of ensuring that the
capacity of fishing fleets is in balance with the available fishing
opportunities. He points out that the fleet entry/exit regime
introduced is in fact very similar to the licensing regime for
UK fishing vessels which has been in operation since 1997.[21]
As such, once appropriate measures to cover the transition to
the new regime were included in the legislation, its introduction
has had virtually no impact on the UK, which the Minister says
is in full compliance with the fleet limits set out.
6.6 He adds that the report was discussed by Member
States at the Management Committee for Fisheries and Aquaculture
in Brussels on 9 September and 13 October 2004. He says that the
Commission and Member States will look to incorporate the suggested
improvements in the annual reports on the fleets in 2004, due
from Member States by 1 May 2005.
Conclusion
6.7 We note that this is the first report on the
new arrangements, introduced as part of the reform of the Common
Fisheries Policy agreed in 2002 and aimed at achieving a better
balance between the capacity of the Member States' fishing fleets
and the catching opportunities available to them. We also note
that the report is generally uncontentious, and that the practical
impact of the new system on the UK is limited. In view of this,
we are clearing the document, but we believe it is relevant to
the debate which we have recently recommended in European Standing
Committee A on the Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and quotas for
2005[22] and on
the equivalent opportunities for deep-sea species in 2005 and
2006.[23]
19 OJ No. L.358, 31.12.02, p.59. Back
20
OJ No. L.204, 13.8.03, p.21. Back
21
This provided that, for a vessel to enter the UK fishing fleet,
the owners had to purchase a licence from a vessel of at least
the same capacity (or from a group of vessels which together added
up to at least the same capacity). In addition, the UK regime
included penalties when more than one licence is aggregated onto
a new vessel. Back
22
(26217) 15237/04; see HC 38-iv (2004-05), para 2 (19 January 2005). Back
23
(26191) 15390/04; see HC 38-iv (2004-05), para 1 (19 January 2005). Back
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