COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Commission's proposal for a REGULATION of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing specific access requirements and associated conditions applicable to fishing for deep-sea stocks in the North-East Atlantic and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 2347/2002 of 16 December 2002
Date: 2012-07-19
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Atlantic Ocean, catch by species, environmental impact, exploitation of resources, fishery management, fishery resources, fishing area, fishing net

EUROPEAN COMMISSION 

Brussels, 19.7.2012  
SWD(2012) 203 final 

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT 

Accompanying the document 

Commission's proposal for a REGULATION of the European Parliament and of the 
Council establishing specific access requirements and associated conditions applicable to 
fishing for deep-sea stocks in the North-East Atlantic and repealing Council 
Regulation (EC) No 2347/2002 of 16 December 2002 

{COM(2012) 371 final} 
{SWD(2012) 202 final} 

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COMMISSION STAFF WORKING PAPER 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT 

Accompanying the document 

Commission's proposal for a REGULATION of the European Parliament and of the 
Council establishing specific access requirements and associated conditions applicable to 
fishing for deep-sea stocks in the North-East Atlantic and repealing Council 
Regulation (EC) No 2347/2002 of 16 December 2002 

Introduction 

Since 2002 the Union has in place a specific access regime (Regulation (EC) No 2347/2002) for 
fishing  vessels  engaged  in  deep-sea  fisheries,  made  of  four  components:  Capacity  restriction, 
data collection, effort monitoring, and control. The access regime is due to a regular review. The 
review started in 2007 with a Commission Communication. The main phase of consultation was 
in 2009 and 2010. 

The overhaul of the access regime is based on certain assumptions concerning the CFP reform 
process. A legislative proposal overhauling the access regime is scheduled for the first semester 
2011. 

Problem 

The  deep-sea  fisheries  in  the  North-East  Atlantic  are  partly  dominated  by  traditional  coastal 
fleets  (Portugal,  Spain),  partly  dominated  by  large  nomadic  trawlers  (France,  Spain).  They 
account for only 1% of landings from the North-East Atlantic. 

Deep-sea  fisheries  have  only  since  2003  been  subject  to  detailed  management  on  fishing 
opportunities (total allowable catch, fishing effort maxima). Before this, the fishery developed 
largely  unregulated  and  showed  typical  symptoms  of  the  "race  to  fish"  problem,  namely  the 
depletion of stocks. In the case of deep-sea fisheries, due to the specific vulnerability to fishing, 
the stock depletion can occur in a short period of time, and recovery might take very long or fail. 
The stocks' biological state is largely unknown. Some are considered depleted; the fisheries are 
in general not sustainable. Fishing opportunities are decreasing. 

In summary, the problems can be structured as follows: 

Main problems: 

–  the  high  vulnerability  of  these  stocks  to  fishing;  many  of  them  will  only  sustain 

fishing pressure over a longer period that is economically not viable; 

–  fishing with bottom trawls destroys or risks destroying irreplaceable benthic habitats 
(vulnerable marine ecosystems) which represent main sources of biodiversity in the 
deep sea. The extent of destruction that already occurred is unknown; 

–  fishing with trawls for certain deep-sea species produces medium to high levels of 

undesired catch of deep-sea species;  

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–  determining  the  sustainable  level  of  fishing  pressure  via  scientific  advice  is 

particularly difficult. 

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Shortcomings of the current regime: 

–  The scope of fleets concerned is too large and too inflexible (lack of effectiveness as 

the regime is not targeted enough) 

–  After the adoption of the new control regulation1, the regime is partly redundant and 

the link to the control standards is unclear (lack of coherence); 

–  The  separate  data  collection  is  of  very  limited  use  to  scientific  advisory  bodies, 
although  constituting  an  administrative  burden  (lack  of  effectiveness  and  lack  of 
coherence with the Data Collection Framework). 

Objectives 

General objective 

General  objective  of  the  proposal  is  to  ensure  sustainable  exploitation  of  deep-sea  stocks 
according  to  the  concept  of  Maximum  Sustainable  Yield,  thereby  limiting  the  environmental 
impact as much as possible. As long as data and method have not achieved the requisite quality 
level allowing a management towards MSY, the fisheries have to be managed according to the 
precautionary approach. 

Specific objectives 

–  To  comply  with  scientific  advice  on  precautionary  catch  levels;  to  facilitate  the 

future development of MSY-management for these data-poor stocks; 

–  To reduce the impact of bottom gears on the seafloor in order to reduce the risk of 

damage to VMEs; 

–  To reduce the level of undesired catch;  

–  To ensure the collection of all data needed for improving scientific advice. 

–  To  focus the  rules  on  the metiers  that are  targeting  deep-sea  species  and  make  the 

metier-definition adaptable to evolving scientific advice and fleet behaviour; 

–  To make the access regime coherent with the control regulation; 

–  To  harmonise  the  special  data  collection  with  the  general  standards  and  ensure 

follow-up.  

Options 

5  options  were  considered  for  developing  the  initiative.  Status  quo,  banning  all  deep-sea 
fisheries  and  regulating  by  technical  measures  only  options  were  discarded  for  their  major 
disadvantages. The two options retained were: 

Option 3– ban gears that are most harmful to the deep-sea ecosystem 

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Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009. 

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The  fishing  gears  which  are  posing  the  main  ecological  problems,  namely  bottom  trawls  and 
gillnets2,  are  banned  from  deep-sea  fisheries.  The  technical  solution  would  consist  in  either 
banning  those  gears  from  the  fleets  that  are  allowed  to  target  deep-sea  species  or  by  banning 
those gears from operating deeper than at a certain. The other problems of deep-sea fisheries and 
the  access  regime  would  be  tackled  by  adaptations  to  the  existing  rules:  not  allow  fishing 
opportunities to be fixed higher than precautionary advice; allow testing of MSY-rules; specify 
the  data  collection  standards  for  deep-sea  fisheries  as  part  of  the  existing  Data  Collection 
Framework  and  allow  the  Commission  to  close  the  fishery  if  data  is  not  collected;  abolish 
separate effort reporting; distinguish by-catch from targeted fisheries for management and allow 
Commission  to  fine-tune  the  list  of  relevant  species  and  catch  thresholds;  abolish  redundant 
control  provisions  and  specify  the  enhanced  control  standards  which  apply  according  to  the 
control regulation (equivalent to control of multi-annual plans). 

Option 4 – access conditional on international management standards for the High Sea 

A fourth option would incorporate management standards developed by UN/FAO for fishing on 
the  bottom  of  the  High  Sea.  The  main  new  elements  would  be:  Conduct  impact  assessments 
before  allowing  bottom  fishing;  identify  where  VMEs  occur  or  are  likely  to  occur;  establish 
protocols  of  VME  encounters.  For  discard  reduction,  which  is  a  topic  not  addressed  by  those 
standards,  this  option  4  would  either  oblige  vessels  to  drastically  reduce  discards,  or  move 
towards  a  mandatory  regime  of  regional  effort  management  where  all  catches  have  to  be 
retained on board. The other problems would be tackled as described in option 3. 

Impact assessment of retained options 

The  two  retained  options  were  compared  in  regard  of  their  outcomes  relative  to  the  policy 
objectives, the efficiency and coherence: 

Outcomes 

For  the  specific  objectives  a),  d),  e),  g)  and  h),  the  options  provide  the  same  solution  and  are 
therefore considered equivalent: 

a)  (-  To  comply  with  scientific  advice  on  precautionary  catch  levels;  to  facilitate  the  future 
development of MSY-management for these data-poor stocks - ): By regulating in co-decision 
that  recurrent  decisions  on  the  allocation  of  fishing  opportunities  cannot  go  beyond  what  is 
scientifically advised as a precautionary level of catches or fishing effort, it will be ensured that 
the scientific advice on precautionary management is adhered to. As the rule only applies to the 
precautionary  framework,  it  leaves  open  the  possibility  to  develop  harvest  rules  scientifically 
based  on  MSY  in  the  future,  and  following  those  harvest  rules  in  recurrent  decisions  on  the 
allocation of fishing opportunities. 

d)  +  h)  (-  To  ensure  the  collection  of  all  data  needed  for  improving  scientific  advice;  to 
harmonise  the  special  data  collection  with  the  general  standards  and  ensure  follow-up  -):  By 
enlarging  the  general  data  collection  requirements  towards  fishing  depth,  VMS  position  and 
logbook  entries  haul  by  haul,  the  additional  data  considered  necessary  by  scientists  would  be 

2 

In view of their high levels of undesired catch and lost fishing gear continuing fishing in the deep water, 
gillnets  were  already  made  subject  o  transitional  technical  measures  which  have  resulted  in  practice  in 
these gears currently not targeting deep-sea species. 

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collected  in  the  deep-sea  metier.  By  linking  this  data  collection  to  recurrent  notification 
exercises (VMS position, electronic logbook reports), the administrative burden for the fishing 
undertakings  can  be  kept  to  a  minimum.  By  incorporating  the  data  collection  on  the  deep-sea 
metier into the standards of the general data collection, it will be ensured that the data collected 
responds  to  the  recurrent  statistical  validity  requirements,  can  be  compares  across  Member 
States.  The  obligation  to  sample  deep-sea  metiers  according  to  a  specific  metier  definition  is 
needed because otherwise the biological data from the commercial fishery would sometimes be 
submerged  in  larger,  more  disaggregated  metiers.  This  obligation  could  be  transferred  into  a 
reviewed  data  collection  regulation  (2012)  in  case  it  will  be  decided  to  incorporate  metier-
specific requirements. 

e) (- to focus the rules on the metiers that are targeting deep-sea species and make the metier-
definition adaptable to evolving scientific advice and fleet behaviour - ): By defining a metier of 
deep-sea fishing (10% of deep sea catches per fishing day), the special fishing authorisations can 
be  split  into  two  categories,  one  for  vessels  targeting  deep  sea  species,  one  for  vessels  the 
catches  of  which  are  limited  to  y-catches  only.  All  vessels  would  be  subject  to  the  limit  on 
vessel capacity in the fishery and on landing in designated ports, but the other obligations and 
rules of the access regime would only apply to vessels targeting deep-sea species, thus repairing 
one  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  existing  regime.  The  Commission  would  be  empowered  to 
modify  or  detail  the  list  of  deep-sea  species  and  the  metier-definition  according  to  scientific 
advice and regional fishing pattern, thus allowing for an evolution of the regime according to the 
reality of the fisheries and the improving scientific knowledge. 

g)  (-  To  make  the  access  regime  coherent  with  the  control  regulation  -  ):  The  new  control 
regulation contains a number of provisions similar to the existing access regime. Alignment can 
be achieved by discontinuing those provisions. In addition, the access regime could strengthen 
the  control  regulation's  instrument  of  closing  a  fishery  when  essential  provisions  of  the 
conservation measure are not complied with, by stipulating that the data collection obligations 
are to be considered also as essential conservation measures in the  particular case of deep-sea 
species. 

Concerning VME protection (objective b), the banning of bottom trawls (option 3) from targeted 
fishing is considered more effective than implementing the High-Sea standards related to VME-
protection (prior impact assessment, encounter protocols, search for VME occurrence). Bottom 
trawls would no longer be present on the deep-sea grounds, irrespective of the results of a risk 
assessment. Risk assessment according to the international standards is influenced by the notion 
of "intensity of prior presence", and this would give rise to qualification problems3. 

Concerning  the  reduction  of  unwanted  catches  (objective  c),  option  3  is  also  considered  more 
efficient,  It  bans  harmful  gear  from  these  fisheries  directly,  whereas  option  4  poses  ever 
increasing conditions on the use of bottom gears. Thus, option 4 makes it very burdensome to 
use  bottom  gears,  which  in  economic  terms  makes  it  less  attractive,  while  option  3  forces  the 
operators to use less harmful gear. A further relative disadvantage of option 4 is that it relies on 
implementation  and  control  of  several  additional  measures  in  parallel,  while  the  fisheries 
administrations  are  facing  cost-cutting  exercises  imposed  by  the  need  for  fiscal  discipline  and 
need  thus  to  concentrate  their  control  effort  on  economically  important  fisheries.  Option  3  is 
also considered more effective, being a particularly restrictive policy on this subject in fisheries 
where  the  species  caught  are  particularly  vulnerable  to  fishing.  The  ecosystem  approach  to 

3 

See Communication COM(2010) 651, p. 6. 

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fisheries  management,  a  concept  already  valid  under  the  current  CFP,  is  put  into  practice  for 
fisheries that operate in the most fragile ecosystems. Within option 4, the move towards regional 
effort levels is preferred over discard reduction targets, in view of affirmative scientific advice 
on the utility of effort management in deep-sea fisheries. 

Within the more effective option, the sub-option which introduces the ban via restricted fishing 
authorisations is considered more effective than the sub-option which would ban the gears from 
a certain depth. There are three reasons for this: First, a spatial approach would require control 
of  depth  levels  at  which  gears  are  employed,  and  such  a  control  instrument  is  currently  not 
implemented.  Second,  the  depth  limits  would  have  to  be  established  according  to  scientific 
advice  on  local  occurrence  of  deep-sea  species,  because  those  inhabit  varying  depth  ranges. 
Third, the distribution area of deep-sea species overlap with the distribution area of other species 
on  the  lower  part  of  the  continental  shelf;  therefore  a  depth-criterion  would  constrain  also 
fisheries  which  are  not  considered  for  this  measure.  By  contrast,  the  sub-option  'fishing 
authorisation' would refer to the catch composition during the trip, and information on the catch 
composition becomes in future more reliable through the obligation to send electronic logbook 
information. 

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Efficiency 

Regarding efficiency, option 3 gets a higher rating than option 4. This is because option 3 bans 
harmful gear from these fisheries directly, whereas option 4 poses ever increasing conditions on 
the use of bottom gears. Thus, option 4 makes it very burdensome to use bottom gears, which in 
economic  terms  makes  it  less  attractive,  while  option  3  forces  the  operators  to  use  less 
destructive gear. A further relative disadvantage of option 4 is that it relies on implementation 
and  control  of  several  additional  measures  in  parallel,  while  the  fisheries  administrations  are 
facing  cost-cutting  exercises  imposed  by  the  need  for  fiscal  discipline  and  need  thus  to 
concentrate their control effort on economically important fisheries. 

Within option 3, the sub-option on spatial limitation is considered less efficient because it needs 
an  additional  control  effort  related  to  fishing  depth,  while  national  administrations  are  in  the 
process of implementing the new control regulation which in itself puts extreme strain on them. 

Coherence 

Concerning coherence, option 3 is more appreciated than option 4. On the one side, the banning 
of  harmful  gear  is  a  policy  already  developed.  The  discard  ban  forthcoming  under  the  CFP 
reform is being anticipated by phasing out gears which have shown to have very high discards 
of species that are most vulnerable to fishing. The ecosystem approach to fisheries management, 
a concept already valid under the current CFP, is put into practice for fisheries that operate in 
the  most  fragile  ecosystems.  The  intentional  limitation  in  regulatory  detail  is  in  line  with  the 
reform's simplification approach. The CFP reform's move towards regional management could 
be translated by giving an option for a voluntary move towards regional effort management for 
those gears that are allowed to remain in the fishery. 

On the other side, the option introducing High Sea standards is coherent with an existing policy 
protecting  the  same  type  of  species,  although  in  a  different  economical/fleet  context.4  The 
negative  appraisal  comes  from  two  considerations:  1)  In  EU  waters,  VMEs  receive  protection 
also through the development of sites of NATURA 2000 under the Habitats Directive. The CFP 
reform  will  introduce  a  procedure  for  putting  into  practice  the  fisheries  part  of  these 
conservation measures. This approach is based on the idea of creating a positive list of unique 
communities of biodiversity which will be directly protected, while the international concept is 
based  on  the  idea  of  risk  mitigation  and  avoidance  strategies.  Both  are  not  incompatible  but 
could  lead  to  duplication  of  work.  2)  The  addition  of  new  administrative  requirements  to  the 
fishery,  without  assurance  on  the  result,  is  not  coherent  with  the  simplification-approach 
intended by the CFP reform. 

Monitoring and evaluation 

For the monitoring of progress, indicators for the following policy fields have been suggested: 

Policy area 

Possible progress indicator 

Data gathering / evaluation 
arrangement 

Sustainable 

fixing 

of  Number of stocks which are managed according  Commission service  

4 

Only large capital-intensive vessels are able to undertake long journeys on the High Sea, while in costal 
waters of the deep like in Portugal, a large amount of artisanal vessels prosecutes the fishery. 

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fishing opportunities 

the  precautionary  advice  received  from 

to 
ICES/STECF; 

Number  of  stocks  for  which  exploratory  MSY-
rules are being tested 

Discard reduction 

Trends in discards of deep-sea metiers 

Protection of VMEs 

Accomplish phase-out of bottom trawls in deep-
sea fisheries by the end of the transition period. 
Spatial  profile  of  bottom  trawlers  concerned 
moves towards shallower waters 

Technical  reports  from  STECF 
based  on  data  collection  under  the 
access regime and DCF. 

of 

Monitoring 
fishing 
authorisations  of  Member  States, 
Member  States  to  assess  VMS-
traces  and  catch  composition 
protocols of vessels concerned 

Data 
and 
gathering 
channelling  is  adapted  to 
and 
scientific 
aligned  with  the  general 
data collection policy. 

needs 

Reduction 
in  fish  stocks  for  which  ICES 
working  group  on  deep  sea  species  reports 
unavailability of commercial fisheries' data 

ICES advice 

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