New rules for managing the EU external fishing fleet

Briefing 14-04-2016

In December 2015 the European Commission proposed a revised system for issuing and managing fishing authorisations, intended to improve monitoring and transparency of the EU external fishing fleet. The proposal, replacing the current 'Fishing Authorisations Regulation' 1006/2008, would apply to all EU vessels fishing outside EU waters, and to third-country vessels fishing in EU waters. The current scope of the authorisation system would be extended to include practices which have been poorly monitored so far, such as private agreements between EU companies and third countries and abusive reflagging operations. Member States would authorise fishing vessels using common eligibility criteria, complemented by specific conditions depending on the nature of the authorisation. Part of the electronic fishing authorisations register, showing who fishes what and where, would for the first time be publicly accessible. On 15 February 2016, Member States in the Council generally supported the proposal, but also expressed some concerns, in particular in connection with the additional administrative burden that the proposal might entail. Parliament's Fisheries Committee is due to start discussing its draft report in April 2016. A more recent edition of this document is available. Find it by searching by the document title at this address: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/home.html