PURPOSE : to offer favourable treatment to fishing fleets registered in the EU's outermost regions.
LEGISLATIVE ACT : Council Regulation 639/2004/EC on the management of fishing fleets registered in the Community outermost regions.
CONTENT : the Council unanimously adopted a Regulation on the management of fishing fleets registered in the outermost regions as compared with the continental fleets, given their structural, social and economic position. This specific treatment would involve derogation from the general rules on the fleet entry/exit scheme and on the fleet modernisation aid implemented by the last agreed CFP reform.
This text takes as a reference level, for any given capacity increase, the objectives fixed by the multiannual guidance programmes IV (MAGP IV) for the French overseas departments, the Azores and Madeira for each fleet segment. Specific reference levels should be determined for vessel segments registered in the Canary Islands, for which no specific objectives were fixed in the MAGP IV framework.
As regards fleet renewal and modernisation, the Commission's proposal required that the final date for committing public aid for renewal should be 31 December 2005 and that vessels benefiting from aid should enter into the fleet register by 31 December 2006 at the latest.
The changes introduced in the initial proposal now include a new deadline for the entry of new capacity into the fleet register, which is to be 31 December 2007.
Two statements from the Commission are attached to the Regulation: one deals with the change of legal basis agreed by the Council as the Regulation now includes Article 37 (general provisions on agriculture and fisheries) and Article 299(2) of the Treaty (provisions on outermost regions). The other statement entered by the Commission, at the request of the Spanish delegation, is a commitment to implementing the rules taking into account the specific concerns of the Canary Islands as regards fleet segmentation in relation to types of fishing and to the state of targeted stocks.
The Commission shall submit to the European Parliament and the Council a report on the implementation of this Regulation no later than 31 December 2006.
ENTRY INTO FORCE : 14/04/2004. It shall apply from 1 January 2003.�