With the rules now having been adopted for how the 2010 Control Regulation is to be enforced, getting away with fishing illegally will get much more difficult, the EU Commission says.
“We can no longer allow even a small minority of fishermen to ignore the rules, and get away with it”, said Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki.
“Apart from being unfair, this also undermines conservation efforts; it disrupts markets with unfair competition; it penalises law-abiding fishermen and chokes the circle of compliance; and, most importantly, it destroys fish stocks”, she added.
The Control Regulation went into force more than a year ago, on 1 January 2010, but the implementation rules were not finally set down until April this year.
According to a Commission press release, the new rules will
- Allow for control “from net to plate” by covering all stages of the supply chain; the traceability system allows inspectors to detect wrongdoings at any point in the chain.
- Provide concrete mechanisms to ensure a level playing field for fishermen, other operators and Member States. Sanctions have been harmonised and a new point system ensures that serious infringements lead to similar consequences in all Member States.
- Bring about major simplification, as all applicable rules in the field of EU fisheries control, which were previously scattered across many different instruments, are now contained in one single text.
- Generalise the use of new technologies, which on the one hand reduce administrative costs for operators and authorities and on the other make data checks much easier, thus increasing efficiency.
The new Regulation also details the mechanisms that the Commission may use to make sure that member states follow those rules for control.
With this system for controls “throughout the market chain ‘from net to plate’, the EU now has the means to break with the past and establish a real culture of compliance to stop overfishing and help make EU fisheries truly sustainable”, the press release said.
The “net to plate” principle means, according to the Commission, that fish will be entirely traceable: “once the product reaches the stores, the consumer will know it has been fished legally”.
At a press conference presenting the new implementation rules, Commissioner Damanaki stressed that the new system makes things much simpler, since all control rules are now contained in one single text, “thus making life easier for both fishermen and control authorities”.