COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No 109/94 of 19 January 1994 concerning the fishing vessel register of the Community
THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community,
Having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 3760/92 of 20 December 1992, establishing a Community system of fisheries and aquaculture (1), and in particular Article 13 thereof,
Having regard to Council Decision 94/15/EC of 20 December 1993 on the objectives and methods for restructuring the Community fisheries sector over the period 1 January 1994 to 31 December 1996 to achieve a lasting equilibrium between the resources and their exploitation (2), and in particular Article 2 thereof,
Whereas it is appropriate that the Member States ensure the collection of the data necessary to determine the fishing effort exerted on fish stocks by the Community fishing vessels, in order to limit this effort to a level compatible with the balanced exploitation of these stocks;
Whereas Article 1 (a) and Article 5 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 4028/86 of 18 December 1986 on Community measures to improve and adapt structures in the fisheries and aquaculture sector (3), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 3946/92 (4), established multiannual guidance programmes permitting lasting guidance for the development of the fisheries sector; whereas, in order to monitor those programmes, the Member States forward to the Commission the information necessary to establish and manage the fishing vessel register of the Community; whereas it is appropriate to take into account the constraints imposed by the objectives fixed by the provisions of Article 11 of Regulation (EEC) No 3760/92;
Whereas in accordance with the multiannual guidance programmes for the period 1993/96 adopted by Commission Decisions 92/588/EEC to 92/598/EEC (5) and to ensure the implementation of these programmes under conditions which are equitable between Member States as regards the effort required as well as to ensure the transparency of the results, it is appropriate that the data necessary to determine fishing effort are forwarded to the Commission, individually by vessel or aggregated by homogeneous groups of vessels or segments of the fleet, depending on the particular cases;
Whereas Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy (6), and in particular Article 29 thereof, establishes the basis for the creation of databases and verification methods;
Whereas Council Regulation (EEC) No 2930/86 (7) defines characteristics for fishing vessels;
Whereas Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1381/87 (8) establishes detailed rules concerning the marking on documentation of fishing vessels;
Whereas the adoption of a system for the input, and subsequently the treatment of data requires, in addition to individual data on vessel characteristics and capacity, the evaluation of the level of fleet activity at the start of the programme, as well as its variation until the adoption of the system;
Whereas the number of Community vessels in such that it is necessary to envisage data processing support to facilitate the transmission and treatment of the data collected;
Whereas the transmission of data provided for in Article 4 of Decisions 92/588/EEC to 92/598/EEC is effected at regular intervals; whereas it is appropriate to ensure coordination between those transmissions and transmissions made under the provisions of this Regulation;
Whereas Commission Regulation (EEC) No 163/89 (9) should therefore be repealed;
Whereas the measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Standing Committee for the Fishing Industry,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
Article 1
The fishing vessel register of the Community, hereafter referred to as 'the register', concerns all Community fishing vessels as defined by Article 3 of Regulation (EEC) No 3760/92.
Article 2
The register shall contain:
- the data to be communicated for each Community fishing vessel resulting from censuses undertaken by each Member State on its fleet, from 1 January 1989, or in special cases and with the agreement of the Commission, from a later date,
- all the changes which have occurred since the censuses where they affect the data.
Article 3
For every element concerning the registration of a vessel, its removal from the national fishing register and/or every change to the characteristics defined in Annex I, the Member State concerned shall forward to the Commission, before the 15th day of each month, the information set out in Annex II. This information shall be forwarded at the latest three months after such element, removal or change was established by the Member State.
Article 4
For each segment or homogeneous group of vessels for which the Member States submit to the Commission a programme of fishing effort limitation incorporating regulatory measures pertaining to fishing activity, the following procedures shall be adopted:
- the Commission shall acknowledge receipt of the programme and shall have two months within which to analyse it and to decide on its acceptance or its postponement while awaiting further examination,
- in the case of a postponement, the procedures to calculate fishing effort for the segment or group of vessels referred to by the programme shall remain those referred to in Article 5,
- in the case of an acceptance, the Member State and the Commission shall agree a date for implementation of the programme at the latest one month after the date of acceptance,
- at the time of implementation of the programme, the Member State shall begin the procedures to collect the individual data on the fishing effort of the vessels in the segment or group of vessels in accordance with the provisions of its programme,
- the Member State shall effect the input of these data and ensure that the individual data are accessible in the format described in Annex VI in order to permit their verification,
- the processing of these data by a computer programme shall be effected by the Member State or, upon request, by the Commission,
- the transmission to the Commission of the individual data or data aggregated by segment shall be effected annually in accordance with the provisions of Article 6 and Annexes VI.
Article 5
For the segments and groups of vessels not covered by the programmes referred to in Article 4, Member States shall collect and process the minimum data provided for in Annex VI needed to ascertain that the level of activity for these segments or groups of vessels do not increase, or, if they increase, to evaluate the increase. To this end, the following procedures shall be applied:
- the minimum data provided for in Annex VI permitting the evolution of fishing activity for the segments concerned to be monitored shall be collected and processed by the Member State. Details of the sampling methods selected for each segment of the fleet, together with the values of the statistical parameters describing the precision of the estimates of fishing effort, shall be communicated to the Commission at the time of their application. Any other procedure giving results of comparable precision shall be acceptable provided it has been approved by the Commission,
- the results shall be forwarded to the Commission annually in accordance with the provisions of Article 6 and Annex VI,
- if a Member State establishes an increase in activity for a given segment, it shall calculate the effect of this increase on the fishing effort for this segment and shall inform the Commission of the results in accordance with the seventh indent of
Article 4.
Article 6
The annual transmission to the Commission of the data under Articles 4 and 5 shall be effected at the latest by 31 March of each year for the proceeding year.
This annual requirement and time-limit apply to communications to be forwarded under Article 4 of Decisions 92/588/EEC to 92/598/EEC.
Article 7
Member States shall have the option of using the methods referred to in Article 5 to estimate:
- the fishing effort for segments of the fleet in respect of 1991, which is taken as the reference year of the 1993/96 multiannual guidance programmes for the fishing fleet, on the basis that this reference year was a year of normal activity. The mean level of activity for the three years 1989, 1990 and 1991 may be accepted as the normal level of activity for the reference year,
- the fishing effort of the segments of the fleet for the period between 1 January 1992 and the date of the first annual transmission incorporating data on activity.
The results of these estimates shall be forwarded to the Commission by 31 December 1994 in the form provided for in Annex VI.
Article 8
Corrections to erroneous information contained in the register shall be forwarded to the Commission in accordance with the detailed rules set out in Annexes I to VI within 30 days of the date on which the error is detected.
Article 9
The information to be forwarded shall be communicated to the Commission on magnetic medium for computer processing as defined in Annexes I to VI.
Article 10
Regulation (EEC) No 163/89 is repealed.
Article 11
This Regulation shall enter into force on the seventh day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
Done at Brussels, 19 January 1994.