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New Common Fisheries Policy shall also comply with the EU “better regulation agenda” principle and the REFIT programme with a new simplified approach. The Commission is proposing a more flexible system of governance, empowering regional actors, who know their local context best, to customise technical conservation measures in their own sea basins. The proposal also condenses a number of distinct regulations into one single text which should ease interpretation and facilitate compliance.

The EU will prescribe the general principles and the overall objectives of fishing activities; there will still be a set of basic rules that will be applicable to prohibited fishing gear or the protection of certain species and habitats. However, for technical measures which affect a specific sea basin, national governments and operators will be able to customise the proposed rules to the local context so as to achieve the desired results. 

The new rules are on how, where and when fishermen may fish, also determining gear, catch composition and ways to deal with accidental catches. Up until now, these rules have been decided at EU level through a lengthy adoption process, and over the years this regulatory structure has become highly complex.

EU Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella said: "With this proposal we ensure that our objectives for sustainable fisheries and the protection of marine habitats are reached throughout the EU. Its 'regionalised approach' simplifies the rules, in line with our better regulation agenda. It allows for fisheries management decisions to be made locally, closer to the people they affect."

He added that if, for example, a specific fishing area needs to be closed to protect a particular habitat, such as a sensitive coral reef, or if derogations need to be allowed for specific vessels that do not impact the seabed, all this can be done through technical measures decided by the Member States around that sea basin, in consultation with their stakeholders.

The proposal includes measures for the protection of the marine ecosystem and marine habitats and for avoiding by-catches of non-commercial and sensitive species, such as seabirds and mammals.

Reference: European Commission, press release “Fisheries: Commission decentralises and simplifies technical conservation measures”, Brussels, 11 March 2016, in:

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-16-721_en.htm?locale=en

Complex EU fishing regulations

Three decades of stratified measures have led to a highly complex EU regulatory structure. For instance:

·         the high degree of prescription and complexity makes control and enforcement difficult, creates massive red tape and is ultimately counterproductive, as it leads to a negation of the rules;

·         there needs to be a lengthy, politically-driven adoption process for every detail, no matter how small, technical or for which region; consequently decision-making institutions are reluctant to undertake change and the flexibility element is lost;

·         there is no engagement on the part of the industry, which sees the current technical measures as impractical, inadequate for current fishing practices, contradictory and coercive (as opposed to promoting positive change);

·         the current technical measures provide little incentive to fish selectively;

·         gauging the effectiveness of the measures is difficult in the absence of defined metrics.                                     

New fishing governance

The new Commission’s proposal has two parts:

= Common rules: objectives, targets, common standards and rules such as gear banned in the whole EU, general gear use conditions, measures to protect sensitive species, measures to reduce discarding and minimum conservation reference sizes. Existing conservation standards are maintained and in some cases made stricter.

= Baseline technical measures for each region/sea basin: these are open to adaptation by each region. Under a defined regionalisation process, the EU states around a sea basin, in consultation with the stakeholders, can propose alternative or additional measures (through joint recommendations). This can apply for instance to discard plans, multiannual plans, or any fisheries conservation measures necessary to comply with the Habitat and Marine Strategy Framework Directives.

When the Commission receives joint recommendations from a group of EU states to change the baseline technical measures, it scrutinises them against the objectives and targets of the Regulation. Only if the recommendations contribute to those targets does the Commission accept and adopt them in order for them to become law. This will ensure that conservation standards are constantly maintained or even improved.

Maintaining conservation standards

Technical measures are an essential tool that, together with others (such as fishing opportunities, multiannual plans, discard plans and fleet management) contributes to sustainable fisheries.

The new proposal will play a key role in bringing about more selectivity to protect juvenile (small) fish and avoiding unwanted catches. This is crucial in order to achieve the Maximum Sustainable Yield objective, to take the highest amount of fish from the sea while keeping fish stocks healthy, and to phase out the discarding of fish.

The proposal largely retains the existing conservation standards, however it extends conservation to ecosystems (area closures and other technical limitations to avoid unwanted effects on the ecosystems or the sea bed), marine habitats (in particular in connection with environmental legislation such as the Habitat and the Marine Strategy Framework Directives), and non-commercial and sensitive by-catch species. For instance specific measures for the protection of seabirds are newly introduced.

The governance system ensures that only recommendations which contribute to the defined targets can become law.

Proposal: an example of better regulation

The Commission is currently working with a highly complex and sometimes incoherent set of over 30 very detailed instruments. Fishermen have difficulty keeping up with the measures, and it is also increasingly problematic for national control administrations to enforce them all.

As part of the REFIT programme, the new proposal replaces fully or partially nine co-decided Regulations, amends and simplifies five others, and repeals over 10 Commission Regulations. The simplification, combined with the introduction of the regionalisation element, is expected to increase flexibility and raise buy-in – and thus compliance – on the part of operators.

Reference: European Commission, press release “Questions and answers: Commission decentralises and simplifies technical conservation measures in fisheries”, Brussels, 11 March 2016, in: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-16-722_en.htm?locale=en.