EUROPEAN COMMISSION Brussels, 5.2.2019 COM(2019) 47 final REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1921/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on the submission of statistical data on landings of fishery products in Member States





REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1921/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on the submission of statistical data on landings of fishery products in Member States 1. BACKGROUND The Commission (Eurostat) collects statistics on landings of fishery products under Regulation (EC) No 1921/2006 (‘the Regulation’). According to the Regulation, landings are defined as fishery products landed on Member States’ territory by EU and EFTA fishing vessels, or landed on non-EU territory by Member State vessels and then imported into the EU. Article 10 of the Regulation states that every 3 years the Commission must submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council assessing, in particular, the quality and the relevance of the statistics. The report must also analyse the cost-effectiveness of the system for collecting statistical data on landings and highlight any best practices that could be shared to lessen the workload at national level and lead to more useful, higher-quality data. The Regulation applies to EU Member States and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. However as it relates to landings of marine catch, landlocked countries are exempted from the data reporting obligation. This report is based on (i) the quality reports on landings submitted by the reporting Member States to Eurostat for the reference year 2016, (ii) compliance analysis and (iii) cost data collected by Eurostat. The Commission adopted previous assessment reports concerning statistics on landings submitted under this Regulation in November 2010, April 2014 and May 2016. Eurostat’s fisheries statistics also include detailed statistics on catches, fleet and aquaculture in addition to those on landings. Other Commission departments, mainly DG Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), also collect a large amount of administrative data in order to manage the common fisheries policy. The statistics collected by Eurostat and the administrative data collected by DG MARE partially overlap. Eurostat has launched an evaluation of European fisheries statistics (covering statistics provided on catch, landings and aquaculture) which focuses on assessing the (i) relevance, (ii) effectiveness, (iii) efficiency, (iv) coherence, (v) statistical quality and (vi) EU added value of the collected statistics in the context of all data collected by the Commission and other international organisations. This report covers only the statistics on landings collected by Eurostat and covered by Regulation (EC) No 1921/2006. 2. MAIN FINDINGS 2.1. Punctuality and completeness 2.1.1. Punctuality The punctuality of the data transmissions has improved over recent years, with most of the Member States sending the data on time. For the reference year 2016, data transmitted by half of the reporting Member States needed some corrections. These changes were provided within an acceptable time frame in most cases. The Commission (Eurostat) releases the data immediately after they are validated, and all figures are available in the Eurostat public database one month after the transmission deadline. If necessary, data can be revised at any time. 2.1.2. Completeness The data completeness has improved since 2015. The mandatory unit prices of fishery products, which had previously posed problems, are now in most cases in place. Eurostat clarified the relevant reporting instructions at the 2015 Fisheries Statistics Expert Group meeting. Data completeness has also improved thanks to measures taken by some Member States to significantly extend their survey coverage of vessel types, foreign vessels and species. Only three Member States claimed they did not collect data on landings from vessels less than 10 metres long.

2.2. Consistency 2.2.1. Quality and accuracy The overall quality of the data was good and one third of the Member States reported that the quality had improved since the last assessment report. Most Member States deemed both the non-response rate and under-coverage to be very low. A very limited number of Member States reported measurement or sampling errors, while possible misclassification was considered to have no impact on the data quality. In half of the reporting countries, landings were cross-checked against catch statistics or other national data sources as part of a verification procedure. 2.2.2. Comparability Reporting guidelines provided by Eurostat clarified the type of landings covered by the Regulation. Along with improving data completeness, they improved the data comparability among countries. 2.3. Relevance The statistics on the volumes and prices of the fishery products landed on EU territory contribute to the Commission’s commitments on market intelligence. The data are essential for following up and analysing the EU fishery product markets along the supply chain. They could also be relevant in the context of the landing obligation requiring all catches of regulated commercial species to be landed and counted against the relevant quota. The Member States declared all user needs to be fully met at national level. Where national legislation exists, it covers all variables required in the EU Regulation. 2.4. Accessibility 2.4.1. Online database Statistics on landings are available in the Commission’s (Eurostat) public database in detailed country tables, as well as in an overall summary table displaying EU and national data at a more aggregated level. Half of the reporting Member States also publish the data at national level in online databases that users can access. 2.4.2. Publications and data tables The Commission (Eurostat) publishes data and articles concerning statistics on landings in its online ‘Statistics Explained’ collection and in statistical books. Half of the reporting countries produced electronic publications.



2.4.3. Metadata Every 3 years the Commission (Eurostat) collects national quality reports on which this report is based. The national reports include detailed information on the quality of the data and on the methods used to collect them. The national quality reports follow the European Statistical System (ESS) guidelines and are collected in the ESS Metadata Handler. 2.5. Data confidentiality