The European Parliament, meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday 25 October, called for fisheries controls to be harmonised and for targeted revision of the 2009 control regulation (see EUROPE 11630).
The European Commission said it was currently evaluating this regulation and would bring forward a proposal in 2017. The Commission believes that improvements are possible, particularly on the application of the rules in member states.
MEPs voted by 581 to 59, with 48 abstentions, to adopt the own initiative report by Isabelle Thomas (S&D, France) offering ways to harmonise fisheries controls in Europe. EU-level training for inspectors and a “single reference” for controls were needed, Thomas said in the plenary session debate on Monday 24 October.
The Parliament advocates harmonising sanctions and says it prefers economic sanctions (such as temporary cessation of activity) to criminal penalties. The same infringement should incur the same sanction throughout all the countries of the EU, Thomas argued.
MEPs recommend that equivalent controls be applied to imported fishery products, to shore fishing and to recreational fishing, as well as to the EU fleet fishing in non-EU waters and to non-EU countries’ fleets fishing in EU waters “so as to ensure that the entire European market has an equivalent level of access”. They propose, too, that data exchange be made mandatory in connection with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fisheries.
The Parliament supports the inclusion of the impact of recreational fisheries in the revised control regulation. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)