The European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the report drafted by Philippe MORILLON (ALDE, FR), and amended, in the first reading of the co-decision procedure, the proposal for a regulation on the submission by Member States of statistics on aquaculture. The resolution was adopted by 599 votes for, 9 against and 17 abstentions.
The proposed amendments aim to improve the clarity and coherence of the text, take account of the problems faced by some Member States and make provision for information and regular updates for the Parliament and the Council concerning the application of the Regulation. Parliament pointed out that the increasing importance of hatcheries and nurseries for aquaculture activity requires detailed data for a suitable monitoring and management of this sector within the Common Fisheries Policy. The main amendments were as follows:
-in order to ensure smooth transition from the regime applicable under Regulation (EC) 788/96, the Regulation should allow for a transitional period of up to three years to be granted to Member States where its application to their national statistical systems would require major adaptations and would be likely to cause significant practical problems;
-the term ‘Community statistics’ has the same meaning as in Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 322/97. "Aquaculture" has the same meaning as in Article 3(d) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 on the European Fisheries Fund. “Capture-based aquaculture” means the practice of collecting specimens from the wild and their subsequent use in aquaculture. "Production" means the output from aquaculture at first sale, including production from hatcheries and nurseries offered for sale;
-Member States shall (not “may”) use surveys or other statistically validated methods covering at least 90% of the total production by volume or by number for the production of hatcheries and nurseries. The remaining part of the total production may be estimated. To estimate more than 10% of the total production, a request for derogation may be submitted under the conditions provided for in Article 8;
-a Member State having a total annual production of less than 1000 tonnes (the Commission had proposed 500) may submit summary data estimating the total production;
-a new Article stipulates that Member States shall identify the production by species. However the production of those species which individually do not exceed 500 tonnes and do not represent more than 5% in weight of the production by volume in a Member State may be estimated and aggregated. The production of hatcheries and nurseries in number of those species may be estimated;
-the data shall relate to the reference calendar year and shall cover: 1) the annual production (volume and unit value) of aquaculture; 2) the annual input (volume and unit value) to capture-based aquaculture; 3) the annual production of hatcheries and nurseries;
-Member States shall submit the data referred to in Annexes I, II and III to Eurostat within twelve months (rather than nine) of the end of the reference calendar year. The first reference year shall be 2008 (instead of 2007). Starting with the data for the year 2008 and at intervals of three years thereafter, the data on structures referred to in Annex V shall be submitted within twelve months of the end of the reference calendar year to Eurostat;
-Member States shall provide the Commission with a yearly report on the quality of the data transmitted. At the first submission of the data, Member States shall submit a detailed methodological report describing how the data were collected and compiled. In the quality report, Member States shall describe how the data were collected and compiled;
-full calendar year transitional periods for implementation of the Regulation lasting not more than three years from the date of its application may be granted to Member States in accordance with the management procedure, in so far as the application of the Regulation to their national statistical systems requires major adaptations and is likely to cause significant practical problems. To this end, a Member State shall present a duly motivated request to the Commission before 31 December 2008;
-technical changes to the Annexes shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. The format in which statistics shall be transmitted shall be adopted in accordance with the management procedure;
-within a period of three years starting from the date of entry into force of the Regulation and every three years thereafter, the Commission shall submit an evaluation report to the European Parliament and to the Council on the statistics compiled and, in particular, on their relevance and quality. This report shall also undertake a cost-effectiveness analysis of the system introduced to collect and draw up the statistics and shall indicate best practices to lessen the workload for Member States and enhance the usefulness and quality of the data;
-lastly, the Regulation should apply from 1 January 2009. By way of derogation from this, a Member State having been granted derogation shall continue to apply the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 788/96 for the duration of the transitional period granted.