The Swedish Presidency of the Council of the European Union proposed, in a document dated 1 March, to grant the European Parliament certain concessions in order to make progress towards an interinstitutional agreement on the revision of the regulation on fisheries controls.
It is with this revised mandate that the Swedish Presidency of the Council hopes to enter into negotiations with the European Parliament in the upcoming trilogue negotiations on Wednesday 8 March (see EUROPE 13107/8).
Sweden “seeks to have flexibility to address some of the European Parliament’s most important concerns in view of an agreement. It suggests accepting several of the compromise proposals put forward by European Fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius in his letter of 19 October 2022 (see EUROPE 13049/8), as well as to agree to various compromise texts prepared during the interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament, with the participation of the Commission”, reads a note from the Swedish Presidency.
For example, on recreational fisheries, it is proposed to agree to extend, from 1 January 2030, the rules on the registration of recreational fishers and on the recording and reporting of their catches in the case of species or stocks for which fishing opportunities are set by the Union or which are covered by a multiannual plan, and for which scientific advice indicates that recreational fishing has a significant impact on fishing mortality.
Member States would be required to collect, on the basis of a national methodology, and to send annually to the Commission data on catches of species or stocks for which fishing opportunities are fixed by the Union or which are covered by a multiannual plan, where there are no specific obligations to record and report such catches.
The Swedish Presidency also suggests accepting provisions regarding the control of the landing obligation (the use of on-board cameras or CCTV) and margins of tolerance (margin of error in the fishing logbook estimates, 20% for all species retained on board that does not exceed 100 kg).
The Commission would be invited to accept, on the basis of the results of a study, implementing acts on traceability requirements for processed fishery products.
Link to the Swedish Presidency document: https://aeur.eu/f/5m9 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur, with Mathieu Bion)