The Council and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on a modernised and simplified method of collecting and using statistical data on fisheries and aquaculture across the EU.
The regulation establishing a new European framework for fisheries and aquaculture statistics will improve the availability, quality and comparability of data. It will strengthen evidence-based policies at EU level in this area. This is a particularly important element for the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which aims to ensure the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
Good fisheries management and the prosperity of the aquaculture sector depend on reliable and quality data. Today’s agreement will provide us with a modern framework to make better use of existing information and strengthen the evidence for our policies, while making data collection more efficient and less restrictive for both Member States and operators. This is an important step to contribute to the sustainability and resilience of our fishing and aquaculture sectors in the future.
Thomas Byrne, Irish Deputy Minister for European Affairs and Defence
The agreement reached today consolidates five existing regulations that it brings together in a single and streamlined framework. Updated rules will optimize data collection, reduce unnecessary administrative burden and facilitate the production of high-quality statistics.
Main elements of the agreement
The interim agreement retains the main elements of the Commission’s proposal while introducing a number of targeted changes.
In line with the proposal, the new framework exploits existing databases and modern data sources, including administrative data, databases and electronic registers, to generate statistics at EU level. It will help improve the quality and consistency of data as well as their cost-effectiveness. It will also avoid double declarations and help ensure that European statistics remain reliable and comparable at international level.
The co-legislators also agreed on targeted changes to simplify reporting requirements and reduce the administrative burden for both Member States and operators. These include:
- to create a new data portal on fisheries and aquaculture, set up and maintained by Eurostat; to gather on this portal existing data collected under the legislative provisions in force and to improve their accessibility and visibility;
- allow Member States to be exempted from the disclosure of certain data;
- to provide in specific cases a simplified or aggregated declaration.
In addition, the agreement makes targeted changes to the rules governing the production of statistics at EU level and the transmission of data to international and intergovernmental organisations. The goal is to provide appropriate guarantees regarding data confidentiality.
Next steps
The interim agreement must now be approved by the Council and the European Parliament. After its development by the lawyer-linguists, the regulation will be formally adopted by the two institutions.
Background
Since the 1950s, Eurostat has been providing European fisheries statistics on fish catches, landings, the EU fishing fleet and aquaculture. These statistics are currently governed by five separate regulations dating from the 1990s, which were last revised in depth in the 2000s. The rules in force cover, among other things, statistical variables, fishing areas, reference periods, data transmission times and quality criteria. The Commission proposed to group these five regulations and to update the framework in order to align it with the evolution of data collection and statistical methodology.
Reliable statistics on fisheries and aquaculture are essential for the development, implementation and evaluation of EU policies. This is particularly important in the case of the PCP and policies on the conservation of marine biological resources, the environment, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. These statistics also contribute to monitoring the impact of fishing on sensitive species and habitats as well as the effects of aquaculture on water quality.
The data collected are used by a whole range of organisations, including the European Market in Fishery and Aquaculture Products Observatory (EUMOFA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the regional fisheries management organisations.
