Brussels, 13/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - In its response to the Special Report No3/2001 from the Court of Auditors on control of international fisheries agreements, the Commission recognises that "there are weaknesses in the system for monitoring and evaluation (…) that need to be addressed", mainly because of the refusal of Member States to provide certain information. It points out, however, that the situation has considerably improved since 1999, the date when the results of an outside evaluation study on costs and profits were published. Since then, the Commission has had to draft reports containing data on the situation of stocks, the volume of catches, the exploitation of fishing possibilities and the use of amounts allocated to targeted actions.
During the period 1993-1999, the Court closely examined five fisheries agreements (Morocco, Mauritania, Greenland, Senegal and Argentina), representing 92% of the payments devoted to this section of the 1999 budget. It criticises the cost-benefit ratio, the aim as well as the implementation of these agreements. The main grievances expressed by the Court, accompanied by Commission responses, are:
- Cost-benefit ratio. The increase in payment appropriations in the context of these agreements was 42% between 1993 and 1999, while the fishing possibilities were slightly down, says the Court. This does not take into account the market value of fish, the economic situation of the countries concerned or the impact on the environment. The Court adds that, as possibilities have not always been exploited, "the Community has paid financial compensation for fish that have only existed on paper". The under-use of the agreements mainly concerns Senegal and Greenland (cod and scorpion fish). The Commission undertakes, in the context of the examination of the Green Paper on the future of Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), to establish "criteria and performance indicators for the agreements", as the Court recommends.
- Intended purposes. The Commission is aware of the potential for conflict between the structural and international aspects of the Common Fisheries Policy. By way of example, the Court recalls that, during the negotiation of the agreements with Morocco in 1994-95, a trend towards declining fish stocks was noted. There should then have been a policy for gradual restructuring of the fleets of Member States operating in these waters, as the Commission had indicated, which would have allowed gradual implementation of measures such as the redeployment of vessels or social measures. Such a policy would have made Community fleets less dependent on this agreement. Strategic planning is particularly important, given the risks confronting the Community, mainly in the case of non-renewal of agreements, stipulates the report. The Commission shares the Court's analysis and specifies that Spanish authorities have refuted the approach for resegmentation of their fleet. "The programmed scrapping of 40% of the vessels in question was a politically indefensible option in circumstances where at that particular time the collapse of the agreement had not been established with sufficient certainty", writes the Commission.
- Implementation of the agreements. In order to illustrate the failings in the management of the agreements by the "joint committees" (representatives of the Commission, third countries and in some cases Member States), the Court recalls the episode of unilateral introduction, by Morocco in 1998 and 1999, of a two-month biological rest period for cephalopods. Aware of the weaknesses in the controls by Community and national inspectors, the Commission writes that it regularly attracts the attention of Member States in order to improve the recording of catches and offloading. It adds that it is exact that certain irregularities are committed in the compilation of the log books of certain vessels, but that these tools are only an element among others for assessing the functioning of fisheries agreements.
