REGULATION (EC) No 216/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 11 March 2009
on the submission of nominal catch statistics by Member States fishing in certain areas other than those of the North Atlantic (recast)
(Text with EEA relevance)
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 285(1) thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty (1),
Whereas:
(1)
Council Regulation (EC) No 2597/95 of 23 October 1995 on the submission of nominal catch statistics by Member States fishing in certain areas other than those of the North Atlantic (2) has been substantially amended several times (3). Since further amendments are to be made, it should be recast in the interests of clarity.
(2)
The European Community has acquired membership of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
(3)
The protocol established between the Council of the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities provides for the Commission to supply the FAO with the requested statistics.
(4)
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity the objectives of the proposed action can only be achieved on the basis of a Community legal act because only the Commission can coordinate the necessary harmonisation of the statistical information at Community level while the collection of fishery statistics and the necessary infrastructure to process and monitor the reliability of those statistics are first and foremost the responsibility of the Member States.
(5)
Several Member States have requested submission of data in a different form or through a different medium from that specified in Annex V (the equivalent of the Statlant questionnaires).
(6)
The measures necessary for the implementation of this Regulation should be adopted in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (4).
(7)
In particular, the Commission should be empowered to adapt the lists of statistical fishing areas, or subdivisions thereof, and species. Since those measures are of general scope and are designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, they must be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny provided for in Article 5a of Decision 1999/468/EC,
HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
Article 1
Each Member State shall submit to the Commission data on the nominal catches by vessels registered in or flying the flag of that Member State fishing in certain areas other than those of the North Atlantic, with due regard to Council Regulation (Euratom, EEC) No 1588/90 of 11 June 1990 on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities (5).
The nominal catch data shall include all fishery products landed or transhipped at sea in no matter what form but shall exclude quantities which, subsequent to capture, are discarded at sea, consumed on board or used as bait on board. The data shall be recorded as the live weight equivalent of the landings or transhipments, to the nearest tonne.
Article 2
1. The data to be submitted shall be the nominal catches in each of the major fishing areas and subdivisions thereof as listed in Annex I, described in Annex II and illustrated in Annex III. For each of the major fishing areas the species for which data are required are listed in Annex IV.
2. The data for each calendar year shall be submitted within six months of the end of the year.
3. Where the Member State's vessels under Article 1 have not fished in a major fishing area in the calendar year, the Member State shall inform the Commission to this effect. However, where fishing has occurred in a major fishing area, submissions shall only be required for species/subdivision combinations for which catches were recorded in the annual period of the submission.
4. The data for species of minor importance caught by the vessels of a Member State need not be individually identified in the submissions but may be included in an aggregated item provided that the weight of the products does not exceed 5 % of the total annual catch in that major fishing area.
5. The Commission may amend the lists of statistical fishing areas, or subdivisions thereof, and species.
Those measures, designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 5(2).
Article 3
Except where provisions adopted under the common fisheries policy dictate otherwise, a Member State shall be permitted to use sampling techniques to derive catch data for those parts of the fleet for which the complete coverage of the data would involve the excessive application of administrative procedures. The details of the sampling procedures, together with details of the proportion of the total data derived by such techniques, must be included by the Member State in the report submitted pursuant to Article 6(1).
Article 4
Member States shall fulfil their obligations pursuant to Articles 1 and 2 by submitting the data on magnetic medium, the format of which is given in Annex V.
Member States may submit data in the format detailed in Annex VI.
With the prior approval of the Commission, Member States may submit data in a different form or on a different medium.
Article 5
1. The Commission shall be assisted by the Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics, set up by Council Decision 72/279/EEC (6), hereinafter referred to as ‘the Committee’.
2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, Article 5a(1) to (4) and Article 7 of Decision 1999/468/EC shall apply, having regard to the provisions of Article 8 thereof.
Article 6
1. By 14 November 1996 Member States shall submit a detailed report to the Commission describing how the data on catches are derived and specifying the degree of representativeness and reliability of those data. The Commission shall draw up a summary of those reports for discussion within the competent Working Group of the Committee.
2. Member States shall inform the Commission of any modifications to the information provided under paragraph 1 within three months of their introduction.
3. Methodological reports, data availability and data reliability referred to in paragraph 1 and other relevant issues connected with the application of this Regulation shall be examined once a year within the competent Working Group of the Committee.
Article 7
1. Regulation (EC) No 2597/95 is hereby repealed.
2. References to the repealed Regulation shall be construed as references to this Regulation and shall be read in accordance with the correlation table in Annex VIII.
Article 8
This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
Done at Strasbourg, 11 March 2009.