UK fishing vessel. (Photo Credit: Aadamson)

Political agreement on the EMFF reached

EUROPEAN UNION
Wednesday, January 29, 2014, 22:50 (GMT + 9)

The Council of the EU and the European Parliament have reached a tentative agreement on the main outstanding issues concerning the proposal for a regulation on the European maritime and fisheries fund (EMFF) replacing the existing European fisheries fund, at the occasion of the informal trilogue meeting which took place yesterday afternoon.

The Permanent Representatives Committee - Coreper - will be fully debriefed on this agreement as soon as possible. Once the full text will be available, it will return to Coreper and Council for approval. Ultimately, the draft text will be presented to the European Parliament for vote in first reading, and then to Council for adoption.

The regulation on the EMFF is the last of the three texts of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform "package" which consists also of a new basic Regulation for the Common Fisheries Policy and a new markets regulation. The EU institutions reached an agreement on the last two texts in May last year and the two regulations were finally adopted by the Council in October (regulation 1380/2013  and regulation 1379/2013). In addition, the EMFF is the last of the European Structural Funds still to be adopted for the financing period 2014 to 2020.

The general objective of the EMFF is to support the implementation of the reformed CFP and to further develop the EU's integrated maritime policy (IMP) by financing some of the priorities identified.

The next steps after this tentative agreement will consist in further technical meetings to eliminate discrepancies in the positions that do not need political deliberation, including remaining definitions and recitals.

The Council, the European Parliament and the Commission agreed on the following points:
 

The budgetary resources and their allocation within the global cap of EUR 6,396 million established for the EMFF during the period 2014-2020 was one of the main points of the agreement reached. In this context, it has been decided:

• to establish the allocation for resources under shared management (between the EU and the member states) for the sustainable development of fisheries and aquaculture at EUR 4,340,8 million;
• to raise the allocation for data collection to EUR 520 million and the allocation for control and enforcement to EUR 580 million;
• to set an allocation to compensation for outermost regions of EUR 192 million, an allocation for IMP (EUR 71,1 million) and an allocation for storage aid in case of crisis (EUR 45 million);
• to agree on the allocation under direct management (by the EU) for an amount of EUR 647 million.

As regards the allocation of budgetary resources, an agreement has been found on the possibility to transfer funds between controls and data collection and vice-versa.

•  Conditions for engine renewal where EMFF will support for withdrawing, replacing or modernising engines,
  
  
  • for small scale coastal fishing boats up to 12 metres provided that the new engine has the same power or less than the old one;
  • for vessels up to 18 metres provided that the new engine's power output in the vessel group is at least 20 per cent less than that of the engine it replaces.
  • for vessels up to 24 metres provided that the new engine's power output in the vessel group is at least 30 per cent less than that of the engine it replaces.
     
• Support for permanent cessation of activity during six months maximum in the programming period in case of the non-renewal of a fisheries agreement between the EU and a third country or a substantial cut in fishing opportunities under an international agreement.
• An action plan for the small coastal fishing fleet will be set up in the member states where the proportion of this fleet is significant.
•  With regard to admissibility, equipment increasing the capability of the vessel to find the fish will not be eligible to the fund.
• Conditions allowing compensation in cases of damages due to predators.

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