13 Health requirements for aquaculture
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11880/05
COM(05) 362
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| Draft Council Directive on animal health requirements for aquaculture animals and products thereof, and on the prevention and control of certain diseases in aquatic animals.
Draft Council Decision amending Decision 90/424/EEC on expenditure in the veterinary field.
Commission Staff working document: Annex to Council Directive on animal health requirements for aquaculture animals and products thereof, and on the prevention and control of certain diseases in aquatic animals, and to the draft Council Decision amending Decision 90/424/EEC on expenditure in the veterinary field.
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| Legal base | Article 37EC; consultation; QMV
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| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 10 July 2006
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| Previous Committee Report | HC 34-viii (2005-06), para 3 (2 November 2005)
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| To be discussed in Council | September 2006
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared; but further information requested
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Background
13.1 According to the Commission, existing Community legislation
dealing with aquaculture[43]
was developed two decades ago when there were only 12 Member States,
and its primary aim was to protect the main elements at that time,
namely salmon and trout and oyster farming. It now believes that
these measures need to be updated to reflect the broader range
of aquaculture practices and species found in the enlarged Community,
and to take into account of the developments which have taken
place within the industry, of scientific advances in this field,
and of relevant international agreements and standards.
13.2 It therefore put forward in August 2005 this
proposal, which is described as primarily a deregulatory framework
measure with the capability, through more flexible provisions
and increased reliance on Community secondary legislation, to
enable Member States and the Commission to be more responsive
to future developments in aquaculture and aquatic animal health.
In particular, although the proposal maintains many of the principles
laid down in the current legislation, its principal aim will be
the prevention rather than the control of disease.
13.3 As a consequence, it introduces changes in a
number of areas set out in paragraph 3.3 of our Report of 2 November
2005, notably the authorisation of aquaculture production businesses
and processing establishments; the application of a risk based
animal health surveillance scheme; the centralised electronic
recording of aquaculture animal movements; restrictions on the
placing on the market of aquaculture animals which are sourced
directly from stock subject to increased mortality or a clinical
outbreak of disease in the preceding 31 days; the freedom to trade
in species not defined as susceptible to one or more of listed
diseases; the ability of individual Member States to declare disease
freedom for zones or compartments within their territories; and
provision for a Member State to adopt measures to control diseases
of national importance.
13.4 We were told by the Government that the UK currently
enjoys high fish health status, compared with much of continental
Europe, and that it is important that any changes to the current
regime should not jeopardise that status. In addition, our attention
was drawn to a number of specific concerns, notably:
- that devolving to a Member
State the facility to declare zones or compartments within its
territory to be disease-free would make it easier to have a large
number of such zones within an area where a disease is endemic:
consequently, in order for the new system to operate satisfactorily
without increasing the risk of introducing disease, it would have
to be transparent, and applied rigorously by Member States;
- that gyrodactylus salaris (Gs)[44]
had not been included in non-exotic diseases listed in Annex III
of the proposal as requiring control measures to be taken: the
UK is currently recognised as having freedom from this parasite,
and it therefore intended to press for its listing in Annex III,
and for the retention of the safeguard measures which currently
operate to prevent its introduction; and
- that implementation of the measures could potentially
lead to markedly increased costs: the UK will therefore be concerned
to ensure that these requirements are proportionate to the risk
faced, and that the measures taken will not give rise to any additional
Community funding, since this would have to come from a Member
State's allocation under the European Fisheries Fund, and would
thus require it to reduce expenditure in another area.
13.5 Although the Government had provided an initial
Regulatory Impact Assessment, which suggested that the cost of
the measure cannot be assessed fully at this stage because many
of the details of the new regime will be elaborated through secondary
legislation to be adopted by the Commission, it had identified
two potential areas of financial impact. These were the administrative
burden due to the authorisation of businesses and the inspections
required under a risk-based surveillance scheme. In view of these
concerns, we said that we intended to hold the document under
scrutiny, pending an indication of whether, and how far, it proved
possible to allay them during negotiations in Brussels.
Minister's letter of 10 July 2006
13.6 We have now received a letter of 10 July 2006
from the Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare
at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr
Ben Bradshaw), in which he says that, as a result of discussions
in Brussels:
- a mechanism has been written
into the proposal whereby other Member States will have 60 days
to consider the evidence supporting a Member State's declaration
of disease-free zones within its territory: where those Member
States have significant concerns about that evidence, this period
may be extended to 90 days, and any continuing concerns can then
be referred to the Commission for arbitration, with a provision
to suspend a declaration via comitology if the evidence is found
to be defective; and
- although it has not proved possible either to
include Gs in the list of diseases in Annex III, or to include
a specific reference in the main body of the Directive to the
importance of controlling it, the UK has secured an amendment
permitting national provision for unlisted diseases such as Gs
where they constitute a significant risk to wild aquatic and aquaculture
animals, and current safeguard measures for Gs contained in a
Commission Decision[45]
pending the adoption of measures under the new Directive will
continue: in addition, the Commissioner has stated that it is
the Commission's intention within the framework of the new Directive
to ensure the future protection of UK rivers against Gs in line
with internationally accepted risk mitigation.
13.7 The Minister says that the first of these steps
should ensure that Member States, such as the UK, with high fish
health status can ensure that movements of fish from newly declared
disease-free areas are based on robust risk mitigation principles
and requirements, whilst the second effectively maintains current
health guarantees. More generally, he says that the proposed measure
contains most of the mechanisms needed to ensure that there is
no greater risk than at present of introducing disease to the
wild and farmed environment, though, since a number of areas remain
to be elaborated by secondary legislation to be adopted by the
Commission, this will depend on the extent to which robust measures
can be negotiated at that stage. Similarly, the need for such
legislation makes it difficult to assess fully at this stage the
cost of the measure and its likely impact on business, though
the Government will be aiming to minimise these where this is
practically possible and consistent with adequate risk mitigation.
Overall, he says that the Government is broadly content with the
main thrust of the proposal, and is satisfied that it has achieved
as much as it could in the time allocated for discussion of the
proposal in Brussels.
Conclusion
13.8 We note that the Government has now secured
amendments which meets its earlier concerns over possible risks
which this proposal might pose to the UK's fish health status,
and that it is now content with the broad thrust of the measures
proposed. Consequently, although it will not be possible to provide
a definitive assessment of the proposal's costs and impact until
secondary legislation has been adopted by the Commission, we are
content to clear the document. We would, however, be glad if the
Government could let us know in due course when those aspects
of the proposal have been clarified.
43 Council Directive 91/67/EEC on the animal health
conditions governing the placing on the market of aquaculture
animals and products; Council Directive 93/53/EEC introducing
minimum Community measures for the control of certain fish diseases;
Council Directive 75/70/EC introducing minimum Community measures
for the control of certain diseases affecting bivalve molluscs. Back
44
A parasite which affects wild salmon populations. Back
45
2004/453/EC. Back
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