Proposal for a Council Regulation fixing for 2012 the fishing opportunities available to Union vessels for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks which are not subject to international negotiations or agreements

All fishing opportunities regulations must limit the harvesting of the fish stocks to levels which must be consistent with the overall objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). In this respect, Council Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002 of 20 December 2002 on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources under the Common Fisheries Policy sets out the objectives for the annual proposals for catch and fishing effort limitations to ensure that Union fisheries are ecologically, economically and socially sustainable.

In recent years, the Council of the EU has taken an annual decision on fishing opportunities for the stocks in the Atlantic, the North Sea and those international fisheries in which Union vessels participate. This was the main fishing opportunities regulation by number of regulated stocks, standing alongside the other regulations on fishing opportunities, namely the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the deep sea stocks (the latter every two years).

In a move to streamline and facilitate fishing opportunities decisions, the Commission included in its Communication concerning a consultation on Fishing Opportunities (COM(2011)298 final) its intention to table two proposals out of the content previously contained in one.

The present proposal is the first of the two, covering the stocks in the Atlantic and the North Sea for which the Union decides autonomously what exploitation level must be set. Fishing opportunities resulting from Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) or accepted in consultations with Norway and other third countries (shared stocks) are to be dealt with later in the year, when the results of the relevant international negotiations become available.

Splitting the proposal will allow moving to a simpler and more structured approach where decisions are taken on the basis of the advice and as soon as possible after the advice is provided. Following the model of the Baltic fishing opportunities regulation, it will make the process for adoption more manageable and will provide operators with earlier certainty regarding their activities for the next year.

EUR-Lex: COM(2011)586: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2011:586:FIN

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