Monitoring fisheries activities and conservation of fisheries resources: electronic recording and reporting of fishing activities, remote sensing

PURPOSE: to establish an obligation to electronically record and transmit relevant information relating to fishing activities, including landing or transhipments of catches and sales note, and an obligation to set up a means of remote sensing.

LEGISLATIVE ACT: Council Regulation 1966/2006/EC on electronic recording and reporting of fishing activities and on means of remote sensing.

CONTENT: the Council unanimously adopted a regulation on electronic recording and reporting of fishing activities and on means of remote sensing. The Regulation comes about as a result of the need properly to monitor fisheries activities through the most appropriate means. Control on quantities caught is mainly carried out by collecting information on catches, landings, transhipments, transports and sales, while control on fishing effort is mainly carried out by collecting information on the characteristics of the vessel, time spent on fishing and gears used.

Pilot projects on electronic recording and reporting as well as on remote sensing have been carried out during recent years by Member States and other countries. They have proved to be valid and cost-effective.

The Regulation establishes the conditions under which electronic recording and reporting, as well as means of remote sensing, must be used for control purpose.  The Regulation provides for the following:

• the obligation for fishing vessels exceeding 24 meters in length to electronically record and transmit data after 24 months following the entry into force of the implementing rules. For fishing vessels exceeding 15 meters in length, the phasing-in period will be 42 months following the entry into force of the implementing rules;
• as from 1 January 2009 and where there is clear evidence of a cost benefit in relation to the traditional control means for the detection of fishing vessels operating illegally, Member States will ensure that their Fisheries Monitoring Centres possess the technical capacity to match the positions derived by remotely sensed images sent to earth by satellites or other equivalent systems with the data received by the vessel monitoring system, in order to assess the presence of fishing vessels in a given area;
• the obligation to electronically record and transmit sales notes and, where appropriate, take-over declarations will apply from 1 January 2009 to registered buyers, registered auctions, or other entities or persons authorised by Member States that are responsible for the first sale of fishery products with an annual financial turnover in first sales of fishery products in excess of EUR 400 000.

As regards the financial implications of the implementation of the ERS and remote sensing, the Commission made a statement to the effect that capital and training costs linked to ERS and VDS/remote sensing are eligible for EC financing under regulation 861/2006/EC establishing Community financial measures for the implementation of the common fisheries policy and in the area of the Law of the Sea.

The formats which national competent authorities will use to exchange information for control and inspection purposes will be defined in detailed implementing rules.

ENTRY INTO FORCE : 06/01/2007.