PURPOSE: to set out Member States’ obligations regarding the submission of statistics on aquaculture.
CONTENT: this Regulation requires Member States to submit to the Commission statistics on all the aquaculture activities conducted in freshwater and saltwaters on their territory. The Regulation is designed to improve and replace Council Regulation 788/96/EC on the submission by Member States of statistics on aquaculture production, which is repealed. The adoption of this Regulation will help in obtaining better data for implementing the strategy of the Commission for a sustainable development of the European aquaculture (INI/2002/2058).
Compilation of statistics: Member States must 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 the Regulation. Use of sources other than surveys shall be subject to provision of an ex-post assessment of the statistical quality of those sources.
A Member State having a total annual production of less than 1000 tonnes may submit summary data estimating the total production. 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 will relate to the reference calendar year and cover:
a) the annual production (volume and unit value) of aquaculture;
b) the annual input (volume and unit value) to capture-based aquaculture;
c) the annual production of hatcheries and nurseries;
d) the structure of the aquaculture sector.
Member States must submit required data referred to in Annexes II, III and IV to Eurostat within 12 months of the end of the reference calendar year. The first reference calendar year shall be 2008. Starting with the data for the year 2008 and at intervals of three years thereafter, the data on the structure of the aquaculture sector referred to in Annex V will be submitted within 12 months of the end of the reference calendar year to the Commission (Eurostat).
Quality assessment: each Member State shall provide Eurostat with a yearly report on the quality of the data submitted. At the submission of the data, each Member State shall submit to the Commission a detailed methodological report. In that report, each Member State shall describe how the data were collected and compiled. This report shall include details of sampling techniques, estimation methods and of sources used other than surveys and an evaluation of the quality of the resultant estimates. A proposed format for the methodological report is indicated in Annex VI of the Regulation.
Transitional period: full calendar year transitional periods for implementing the Regulation lasting not more than three years from 1 January 2009 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. A Member State must present a duly motivated request to the Commission by 31 December 2008.
Evaluation report: by 31 December 2011 and every three years thereafter, the Commission shall submit an evaluation report on the statistics compiled pursuant to the Regulation and, in particular, on their relevance and quality. The 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.
ENTRY INTO FORCE: 02/09/2008.