Interinstitutional negotiations on control rules for fisheries operations will resume on 8 March, said the European Parliament’s rapporteur Clara Aguilera (S&D, Spanish) on Tuesday 24 January.
She called on the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries to reach an agreement by the end of June.
So far, 10 political trilogues on this complex and sensitive matter have been organised and there are numerous areas of divergence between the Council and the Parliament: remote electronic monitoring, margins of tolerance (catch declarations), monitoring of engine power, traceability of fisheries products, recreational fishing and harmonisation of sanctions (see EUROPE 13069/20).
“I do not know if we will reach an agreement in June”, said Francisco José Millán Mon (EPP, Spanish), who insisted on the need to find compromises on small-scale fishing.
Izaskun Bilbao (Renew Europe, Spanish) argued for Europe-wide harmonisation of the level of sanctions. “We do not know what recreational fishing catches”, she said. She insisted on the need for the traceability of the origin of fisheries products to be strengthened through digitisation, including with remote electronic monitoring.
Francisco Guerreiro (Greens/EFA, Portuguese) criticised the European Parliament’s desire to increase the margins of tolerance, especially for tuna.
Bert-Jan Ruissen (ECR, Dutch) was in favour of the installation of cameras on board ships being optional.
Peter van Dalen (EPP, Dutch) criticised the Council’s compromise offer on on-board cameras (compulsory for vessels over 18 metres) as illogical for shrimp fishermen (different conditions for different vessel sizes).
Ms Aguilera recalled that agreements have been reached on issues such as licence authorisations, gear marking, ‘fishing without a vessel’, national control programmes and logbooks.
On recreational fisheries, the rapporteur felt that “the Council does not want us to move forward, as this is a national competence”. However, in her view, “we need to have data on recreational fishing if we really want to know what is being caught, because many fishing areas are currently subject to quotas, and it is unreasonable that we do not even have a register” for recreational fishing.
She reiterated the European Parliament’s position in favour of “full traceability throughout the product chain, with a digital system”.
As far as the on-board CCTV cameras are concerned, “we are talking about a remote surveillance system, because there are other systems that can be used beyond the camera”, Ms Aguilera said.
The European Commission representative reiterated her criticism of the compromises being made on the margins of tolerance and on the monitoring of the power of ships’ engines. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)