Brussels, 22/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 22 March, the European Parliament Fisheries Committee adopted the Commission proposal amending Regulation 768/2005 setting up a European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA).
The report by Alain Cadec (EPP, France) on this dossier was adopted with 14 votes in favour, with 4 abstentions. The proposal means that the EFCA will be able to cooperate with the future European Border and Coast Guard Agency and the European Maritime Safety Agency in support of the national authorities carrying out coastguard operations. The Commission is proposing to add an article on cooperation involving the functions of the Coast Guard in the EFCA mandate (an identical text was added to the mandates of the European Maritime Safety Organisation and the European border and coastguards).
The objective of this proposal is to enable the three European agencies to confront emergencies at sea and other tasks by coordinating their operations at sea and sharing appropriate information for the action they're carrying out. The EFCA will contribute to fisheries-related operations but it will not currently be able to take action in other maritime domains.
The proposal clearly sets out the tasks incumbent on the EFCA: - sharing information generated by data from inter-agency reporting systems; providing surveillance and communication services that use state-of-the-art technology; capacity building at European and national levels in an effort to raise awareness about maritime security and safety issues, at sea rescue, fisheries control and borders; - capacity sharing, including the planning and implementation of multipurpose operations and the sharing of assets and other capabilities across sectors and borders.
This proposal follows the European Parliament pilot project on coordinating European coastguard operations, adopted in the context of the European Union budget for 2016. This pilot project helps to test out the joint operations in practice between the three agencies mentioned above. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)