The Committee on Fisheries adopted the report by Marco AFFRONTE (EFDD, IT) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the establishment of a Union framework for the collection, management and use of data in the fisheries sector and support for scientific advice regarding the Common Fisheries Policy (recast).
The committee recommended that Parliaments position adopted in first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the Commission proposal as follows:
Objectives: Members specified that the regulation should establish rules on the collection, management, and use of biological, technical, environmental, social and economic data concerning the fisheries sector with a view to contributing to the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy set out in Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013.
Establishment of an EU multiannual programme: only one programme will be in force for the Union. This does not affect the ability of the Commission to amend the programme. When setting out the multiannual programme, the Commission should bear in mind:
Content of the multi-annual Union programme: multi-annual Union programmes shall establish:
The list of mandatory research surveys shall be drawn up taking into account the following requirements:
National work plans: Member States' work plans shall contain a detailed description of the following:
In preparing their work plan, Member States shall endeavour to cooperate closely with regional authorities and shall coordinate their efforts with other Member States, notably in the same marine region. Data collection activities and methods shall be such as to ensure that it is possible for data to be compared and integrated at least at regional level.
National correspondents: Member States shall ensure that their national correspondent is sufficiently trained and experienced, has a sufficient mandate to represent its Member State in the expert group meetings, and can negotiate on task sharing with regard to sampling, analysis and scientific surveys.
Coordination and cooperation: Member States shall make every effort to coordinate their actions with third countries which have sovereignty or jurisdiction over waters in the same marine region.
Members introduced an amendment defining the tasks of the Regional Co-ordination Groups so that they might plan their activities.
Approval of work plans: the Commission shall adopt implementing acts approving the work plans by 31 December of the year preceding the year from which the work plan is to apply.
Access to the sampling sites and data sources: with regard to data collection, the Commission shall, five years from the entry into force of the Regulation, set up a single European database in order to simplify and facilitate data analysis at European level.
Collection of data in the context of scientific advice: when the Commission seeks scientific advice from a competent scientific body, it shall inform in due time the European Parliament and the Council and shall forward to them a copy of the request submitted to the scientific body concerned.