The European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries is considering adopting, on 25 February, the report by Isabelle Thomas (S&D, France) on the revision of the system for monitoring fishing activities (see EUROPE 12045). It would be voted in plenary in March.
The rapporteur, Mrs Thomas, said on Tuesday 19 February that the most important subject was the conditions for extending the control rules to vessels under 12 metres in length. She noted that compromises will be fairly easy to reach on the modalities for harmonising sanctions.
Concerning vessels less than 12 metres long, compromises will have to be found on the following subjects: - catch reporting conditions (electronic declaration); - geolocation (according to Mrs Thomas, facilities will have to be found for use that is not necessarily immediate after leaving port and not necessarily in estuaries); - direct sales (threshold between 5 and 20 kilograms). Eighty percent of the European fleet consists of small vessels, including 70,000 vessels, Mrs Thomas said.
She reiterated her opposition to the requirement to install cameras on board vessels (surveillance cameras) to verify compliance with the ban on dumping; instead, she is looking for another solution, such as tensiometers, which make it possible to confirm the equivalence of catch weight and landing weight. There is also a debate on the imposition of catch reporting requirements for recreational fisheries. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)