More efforts are needed if the European Union (EU) is to have an effective fisheries control system in place, a new report from the European Court of Auditors concludes.
The report authors say that Member States and the European Commission (EC) have made progress over the last decade; however, the EU does not yet have a sufficiently effective system of fisheries controls to support the Common Fisheries Policy.
To reach their conclusion, the auditors visited four Member States: Spain, France, Italy and the United Kingdom (Scotland) and observed that none of the four had sufficiently verified the accuracy of their fishing fleets’ capacity or the information on the vessels in their fleet registers.
Furthermore, they pointed out that none had verified the tonnage of their fishing vessels, and two had not verified engine power.
Additionally, the auditors found significant discrepancies between vessel details in the fleet register and those in supporting documents.
These researchers stressed that the Member States examined were implementing fisheries management measures adequately and that satellite-based vessel tracking systems provided powerful information for monitoring and controlling fishing activities.
However, as a result of exemptions provided by the Control Regulation, 89 per cent of the EU fleet was not monitored, which hindered effective management in some fisheries and for some species.
Member States have not yet fully implemented the EU’s fisheries control regulation, said Mr Janusz Wojciechowski, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report.
The Member States managed the uptake of their fishing quotas well but when they allowed producer organisations to manage quota distribution, they did not always know which criteria were used.
In the European auditor’s view, this lack of transparency made it difficult to identify the actual beneficiaries of fishing opportunities, to assess any potential adverse impact on the environment and local economies, and to take corrective measures where appropriate.
These researchers also saw examples of good practice, where professional fisheries organisations required their members to comply with additional, but more focused, conservation measures beyond those of the Common Fisheries Policy.
Nevertheless, they claimed that the data on fishing activities collected within the framework of the Control Regulation was not sufficiently complete and reliable and that catch data for vessels making paper-based declarations was incomplete and often incorrectly recorded.
The inspections that were carried out revealed that there were significant discrepancies between declared landings and subsequent records of first sale.
In their report, the auditors present a number of recommendations to the Commission and to the Member States, aimed at improving the reliability of information on fishing fleets, the monitoring of fisheries management measures, the reliability of fisheries data, and inspections and sanctions.
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