EN Official Journal of the European Union C 10/53

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the establishment of a Community framework for the collection, management and use of data in the fisheries sector and support for scientific advice regarding the Common Fisheries Policy’

COM(2007) 196 final — 2007/0070 (CNS)

(2008/C 10/14)

On 1 June 2007, the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under Article 37 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the abovementioned proposal.

The Section for Agriculture, Rural Development and the Environment, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 6 September 2007. The rapporteur was Mr Sarró Iparraguirre.

At its 438th plenary session, held on 26 and 27 September 2007 (meeting of 26 September), the European Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion by 150 votes to 1, with 4 abstentions.

1. Conclusions and recommendations

1.1 The Committee broadly welcomes the proposal for a regulation.

1.2 The EESC harbours doubts as to whether the proposed regulation genuinely represents a ‘simplification’ of the regulation currently in force that could help to reduce the administrative burden, both for Member States and the parties concerned.

1.3 The Committee considers that the European Commission's definition of ‘end-users’ is vague, because it could potentially apply to any individual. The EESC therefore suggests that the Commission amend this definition, making it much more precise.

1.4 The EESC considers that environmental data should be collected primarily by means of surveys-at-sea carried out by the Member States, as part of scientific fisheries programmes.

1.5 The Committee considers that the Commission should further clarify the grounds for non-compliance leading to penalties being imposed on the Member States and should amend the financial corrections.

1.6 The EESC calls on the Commission to delete the reference to the unrestricted access of economic data samplers to business premises because of the legal problems that this may entail.

1.7 The EESC believes that the Commission should expressly provide for Member State funding of observer-at-sea schemes and that self-sampling programmes, which would be carried out by crew members, are kept to the absolute minimum, because they could result in an excessively heavy workload.

1.8 With regard to assessing the impact of fishing activity on the environment, the Committee considers that the European Commission should spell out what data it will need and who will collect it.

1.9 The EESC considers that collecting data that enables an assessment to be made of the degree of species interaction would be difficult and therefore proposes that this point be deleted.

1.10 With regard to the management and use of the primary data that is collected, the Committee wishes to emphasise the importance of everyone with access to these data under the proposed regulation treating them as confidential.

1.11 The Committee considers that it would be practically impossible to start Community and national programmes in 2008, and therefore recommends that the Commission launch them in 2009.

2. Explanatory statement

2.1 The systematic collection of reliable basic data on fisheries is a cornerstone of fish stock assessment and scientific advice, and consequently of critical importance for the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

2.2 The Commission has carried out a review of the current system introduced by the framework regulation for the collection of data (1) following several years of its implementation and considers that it needs to be reviewed in order to take due consideration of a fleet-based approach towards fisheries management, the need to develop an ecosystem approach, the need for improved quality, completeness and broader access to fisheries data, more efficient support for provision of scientific advice and the promotion of cooperation among Member States.

2.3 It is therefore presenting the proposal (2) under consideration here with the aim of developing long-term, well-integrated regional sampling programmes covering biological, economic, environmental and social data that meet new demands generated by the need to move towards fisheries management and towards the ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

2.4 The proposal claims that the new data collection system will cover the entire process, from the collection of the data at sea to its use by the end-users. Furthermore, it innovatively provides for a) the collection of environmental data, with the aim of monitoring the impact of fishing activity on the marine ecosystem, b) a financial penalty for Member States that fail to comply with the rules, c) improvements in access to data and their use and d) a reduction in the administrative burden for all parties concerned (simplification).

3. General comments

3.1 With a view to improving scientific advice, the proposal establishes rules on the collection and management, in the framework of multiannual programmes, of biological, environmental, economic and social data concerning the fisheries sector and the use, in the framework of the CFP, of these data.

3.2 These basic data on fisheries should help to assess the activity of the different fishing fleets, draw up summaries using data collected under other Community provisions on the CFP, calculate the total volume of catches and discards per stock by commercial vessel segment, classify catches by geographical area and time period, estimate the abundance and distribution of fish stocks, evaluate the impact of fishing activities on the environment, assess the fisheries sector's socio-economic situation, facilitate monitoring of the prices of Community vessels' landings and of imports and evaluate the industry's economic and social situation.

3.3 Funding for these activities is provided for under Council Regulation (EC) No 861/2006 of 22 May 2006 establishing Community financial measures for the implementation of the common fisheries policy and in the area of the Law of the Sea (3), on which the Committee has already delivered an opinion (4).

3.4 The proposal attaches particular importance to quality control and validation of the data collected, and considers that the Community financial contribution should be made conditional on quality control and compliance with agreed quality standards.

3.5 Other Community regulations cover the collection and management of fisheries data and include provisions on the collection and management of data relating to fishing vessels, their activities and catches, and on price monitoring, incidental catches of cetaceans and conditions applicable to deep sea fishing, which should be taken into account in the proposed regulation if a comprehensive and coherent system of data collection is to be established.

3.6 The Committee broadly welcomes the proposal. Nevertheless, it is concerned to note the steady increase in regulation by the Community, which adds to the administrative burden. In this case, the EESC harbours doubts as to whether the proposed regulation genuinely represents a ‘simplification’ of the regulation currently in force that could help to reduce the administrative burden, both for Member States and the parties concerned.

3.7 The EESC is also pleased to note that the proposal places great emphasis on the environmental aspects of fishing activities and that it could provide the data needed to apply an ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

4. Specific comments

4.1 The regulation starts by defining a number of key concepts, such as the fisheries sector, recreational fisheries, marine regions, primary data, detailed data, aggregated data, fleet-based sampling, Community fishing vessels and end-users. The EESC considers that the term ‘end-users’ is vague, because it refers to ‘natural or legal persons or organisations with an interest in the scientific analysis of data concerning the fisheries sector’. The Committee is of the view that, under this definition, anybody could be an end-user. It therefore suggests that the European Commission amend its definition, making it much clearer who the real end-users are.

4.2 With regard to data collection, the Commission will draw up a multiannual Community programme covering: — commercial fisheries carried out by Community fishing vessels within and outside Community waters; — recreational fisheries carried out within Community waters; — aquaculture activities carried out within the territories of the Member States and Community waters; — industries processing fisheries products.

4.3 Member States will draw up a national data collection programme in accordance with the Community programme, which will include the procedures and methods to be used in collecting and analysing data and in estimating their accuracy and precision. In particular, the national programmes will include: — national sampling programmes; — a scheme for observers-at-sea, where necessary; — a scheme for surveys-at-sea.

4.4 The Commission proposal states that Community and national programmes will be drawn up to cover a three-year period. The first programmes are due to cover the period from 2008 to 2010. The Committee considers that it would be practically impossible for the programmes to start in 2008, and therefore recommends that the Commission implement this provision as of 2009.

4.5 Member States will coordinate their national programmes with other Member States in the same marine region and make every effort to coordinate their actions with third countries having sovereignty or jurisdiction over waters in the same marine region, as occurs in the regional fisheries organisations.

4.6 The Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) will evaluate the national programmes, any changes to these programmes and the scientific relevance of the data to be collected. The Commission will approve the national programmes on the basis of the evaluation by the STECF.

4.7 The Committee approves of the plan to collect and manage data under multiannual programmes. It wishes to point out to the Commission, however, that its proposal gives no indication of the impact that fisheries data collection will have on a vessel's daily work, in particular the impact of the fisheries sector's activities on the environment. The EESC therefore considers that environmental data should be collected primarily by means of surveys-at-sea carried out by the Member States as part of scientific fisheries programmes.

4.8 Innovatively, the Commission states that, unless the rules set out in the regulation are fully respected, it could sanction Member States by reducing and even suspending financial assistance for their national programmes. The Committee considers this to be a sound proposal and trusts that the Member States will comply with their obligations in order to avoid penalties. Nevertheless, it believes that the Commission should further clarify the grounds for non-compliance leading to penalties being imposed on the Member States and should amend the financial corrections.

4.9 As referred to in point 4.3, multi-annual sampling programmes will include: — a sampling design for biological data following fleet-based sampling including, where appropriate, recreational fisheries; — a sampling design for ecosystem data that permits the degree of species interactions and the impact of the fisheries sector on the environment to be estimated; — a sampling design for economic and social data that permits the economic situation of the fisheries sector to be assessed.

4.10 The Committee reiterates the comments made in its opinion on Regulation (EC) No 861/2006, in which it considered that, in order to improve fisheries management, financing should also be provided, via the Member States, for expenditure incurred by the EU fishing sector in order to conduct the required studies to assess the environmental effects of fishing activities and the socio-economic situation in the sector.

4.11 The Commission states that Member States should ensure that, in order to carry out their duties, samplers have access to: — all landings, including as appropriate, transhipments and transfers to aquaculture; — business premises for the collection of economic data.

4.12 The EESC wishes to draw the Commission's attention to the legal difficulties inherent in granting samplers unrestricted access to business premises in order to collect economic data. It therefore calls on the Commission to delete this point.

4.13 Lastly, fisheries data collection under the national programmes will involve a) observer-at-sea schemes where necessary for the purposes of collecting data and b) scientific surveys at sea to evaluate the abundance and distribution of stocks, independently of the data provided by commercial fisheries and to assess the impact of fishing activity on the environment.

4.14 The EESC considers both of these schemes to be necessary to complement the fisheries data collection framework, and believes that the Commission should specifically provide for the financing — via the Member States — of observer-at-sea schemes. The Committee would like to point out to the Commission that when observers-at-sea cannot board fishing vessels due to an obvious lack of space or for safety reasons, the self-sampling schemes that crew-members are supposed to carry out could result in an excessively heavy workload.

4.15 With regard to assessing the impact of fishing activity on the environment, the Committee considers that the European Commission should spell out what data it will need and who will collect it.

4.16 The regulation provides that Member States will be responsible for the safe storage in computerised databases and the confidentiality of the primary data collected; Member States will also be responsible for the quality and completeness of the primary data collected and of the detailed and aggregated data derived from the primary data.

4.17 The Committee considers it appropriate that these responsibilities should fall to the Member States, because confidentiality is of the utmost importance to fishing enterprises.

4.18 Data confidentiality is of the utmost importance, because national computer databases will contain all primary data collected under: — Regulation (EEC) No 2847/1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy; — Regulation (EC) No 779/1997 introducing arrangements for the management of fishing effort in the Baltic Sea; — Regulation (EC) No 104/2000 on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products; — Regulation (EC) No 2347/2002 establishing specific access requirements and associated conditions applicable to fishing for deep-sea stocks; — Regulation (EC) No 812/2004 laying down measures concerning incidental catches of cetaceans in fisheries. And under this regulation they will contain: — data on vessels' activity based on information from satellite monitoring and other monitoring systems; — data on the total volume of catches per stock by commercial vessel segment, including discards and, where appropriate, data regarding catches in recreational fisheries; — biological data needed to monitor the status of exploited stocks; — ecosystem data needed to evaluate the impact of fishing activities and aquaculture on the environment; — data to evaluate the degree of species interactions; and — economic and social data from the fleet sector and the processing industries.

4.19 With regard to the data enabling an evaluation to be made of the degree of species interactions, the Committee considers that, given their ambiguity and vagueness, an evaluation of this nature is not possible and should, therefore, be deleted.

4.20 Member States will process the primary data into data sets of detailed or aggregated data in accordance with relevant international standards and protocols agreed at region level and, by means of agreements with the Commission, will make them available to the Commission and to the appropriate scientific bodies.

4.21 Member States will transmit detailed and aggregated data in a secure electronic format.

4.22 Member States may refuse to transmit the relevant detailed and aggregated data only if there is a risk of natural persons and/or legal entities being identified or in cases where an end-user fails to comply with the requirements set out in the regulation.

4.23 With regard to the management and use of collected data, the Committee wishes to highlight the importance of the confidentiality of the primary data that are collected, in particular data on vessels' activity based on information from satellite monitoring. The Committee therefore calls on the Commission to adopt a different approach to the matter.

Brussels, 26 September 2007. The President of the European Economic and Social Committee Dimitris DIMITRIADIS

(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 1543/2000 of 29 June 2000 establishing a Community framework for the collection and management of the data needed to conduct the common fisheries policy (OJ L 176, 15.7.2000) and the other regulations in the field of the collection and management of data on fisheries.

(2) COM(2007) 196 final, of 18.4.2007.

(3) OJ L 160, of 14.6.2006.

(4) NAT/280 — CESE 1490/2005 — OJ C 65, of 17.3.2006.