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
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 43 thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission (1),
Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament (2),
Whereas the European Community has acquired membership of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO);
Whereas the protocol established between the Council of the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities provides for the Commission to supply FAO with the requested statistics;
Whereas 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 harmonization of the statistical information at Community level while the collection of fishery statistics and the necessary infrastructure to process and monitor the reliability of these statistics is first and foremost the responsibility of the Member States;
Whereas the specific method of drawing up the relevant Community statistics, which is based on the national statistical systems, requires particularly close cooperation between the Commission and the Member States, in particular within the Standing Committee for Agricultural Statistics set up by Decision 72/279/EEC (3),
HAS 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 (4).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 transhipment, 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 1, described in Annex 2 and illustrated in Annex 3. For each of the major fishing areas the species for which data are required are listed in Annex 4.
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 lists of statistical fishing areas, or subdivisions thereof, and species may be amended in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 5.
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 5.
With the prior approval of the Commission, Member States may submit data in a different form or on a different medium.
Article 5
1. Where the procedure laid down in this Article is to be followed, the chairman shall refer the matter to the Standing Committee on Agricultural Statistics, hereinafter referred to as the 'Committee' either on his own initiave or at the request of the representative of a Member State.
2. The representative of the Commission shall submit to the Committee a draft of the measures to be taken. The Committee shall deliver its opinion on the draft within a time limit which the chairman may lay down according to the urgency of the matter. The opinion shall be delivered by the majority laid down in Article 148 (2) of the EC Treaty in the case of decisions which the Council is required to adopt on a proposal from the Commission. The votes of the representatives of the Member States within the Committee shall be weighted in the manner set out in that Article. The chairman shall not vote.
3. (a) The Commission shall adopt the measures envisaged if they are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee.
(b) If the measures envisaged are not in accordance with the opinion of the Committee, or if no opinion is delivered, the Commission shall without delay submit to the Council a proposal relating to the measures to be taken. The Council shall act by a qualified majority.
If on the expiry of three months from the date of referral to the Council, the Council has not acted, the proposed measures shall be adopted by the Commission.
Article 6
1. Within twelve months of the entry into force of this Regulation, Member States shall submit a detailed report to the Commission describing how the data on catches are derived and specifying the degree of representativity and reliability of these data. The Commission shall draw up a summary of these reports for discussion within the competent Working Group of the Agricultural Statistics 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. Where the methodological reports under paragraph 1 show that a Member State cannot immediately meet the requirements of this Regulation and that changes in survey techniques and methodology are necessary, the Commission may, in cooperation with the Member State within the Standing Committee on Agricultural Statistics, set a transitional period of up to two years during which the programme of this Regulation is to be achieved.
4. Methodological reports, transitional arrangements, data availability, data reliability and other relevant issues connected with the application of this Regulation shall be examined once a year within the competent Working Group of the Agricultural Statistics Committee.
Article 7
This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
It shall apply as from 1 January 1995.
This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
Done at Luxembourg, 23 October 1995.