This Commission staff working document concerns the evaluation of the Entry/Exit scheme in accordance with Article 23(3) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
The purpose of the evaluation is to evaluate the Entry/Exit scheme set up under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) as a means to align the capacity of Union fishing vessels with available marine biological resources.
The evaluation covers the 2003 – 2017 period.
The evaluation report presents information on:
As regards the current state of play, the evaluation stated that among EU 15 Member States that were concerned by the EES from 2003, only BE, DK, FI and FR slightly exceeded (less than 0.5%) their capacity ceilings in 2003 and 2004. After this period and following a technical adjustment due to the discontinuation of the Multiannual Guidance Programmes, these four Member States complied with their respective capacity ceilings. For the other Member States, capacity ceilings have been complied with throughout the 2003-2017 period. In most cases, the evolution of respective fleet capacity and capacity ceilings in gross tonnage (GT) and kilowattage (engine power – kW) shows that the gap between fleet capacity and capacity ceilings tends to widen.
For EU 25, EU 27 and EU 28 Member States, capacity ceilings have been defined only as from January 2014 with the entry into force of the 2013 CFP Regulation, but the other EES rules applied as from the date of accession.
Some Member States exceeded their reference levels by small margins (less than 1%) mostly within the few months following accession (i.e. BG, HR, CY, EE, MT, RO and SI). For LV, LT and PL, reference levels have never been exceeded.
The report stressed that provided that Member States increase their efforts to ensure an accurate measurement, verification and reporting of the capacity indicators GT and kW and acknowledging that thus far no agreed alternatives for capacity indicators have been identified, the EES is fit for purpose as an instrument to prevent fishing capacity from increasing, in particular in contexts where conservation and management measures are not effective enough to regulate the use of fishing capacity through a series of enforceable input and output measures.
Member States have implemented the EES in various ways, in most cases not establishing a clear link with the availability of fishing opportunities. Moreover, the manner in which the EES has been implemented at national level has led to a perceived lack of flexibility as regards the possibility for capacity increases, not leading to the increase of fishing capacity, for modernisation or crew safety and working conditions.