Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 737/2012 of 14 August 2012 on the protection of certain stocks in the Celtic Sea
Scope
1. This Regulation shall apply to fishing vessels operating with bottom trawls or seines in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) divisions VIIf, VIIg and the part of VIIj that lies north of latitude 50° N and east of 11° W (hereinafter the ‘Celtic Sea’), where:
(a)
bottom trawls and seines are of single mesh size equal to or larger than 100 millimetres (hereinafter ‘TR1 vessels’);
(b)
bottom trawls and seines are of single mesh size equal or larger than 70 millimetres and less than 100 millimetres (hereinafter ‘TR2 vessels’); or
(c)
where the vessel using bottom trawls or seines has an engine power of less than 112 kilowatts (hereinafter ‘low-powered vessels’).
2. Paragraph 1 shall not apply to fishing vessels operating with beam trawls.
Technical measures
1. By way of derogation from point (a) of Article 7(1) of Regulation (EC) No 850/98, the following technical measures shall apply for vessels as referred to in Article 1:
(a)
TR1 and low-powered vessels shall use a square-meshed panel of a mesh size of at least 100 millimetres;
(b)
TR2 vessels shall use a square-meshed panel of a mesh size of at least 110 millimetres.
2. By way of derogation from point (a) of Article 7(2) of Regulation (EC) No 850/98, the square-meshed panel as referred to in paragraph 1 shall be placed into the top panel of the codend. The rearmost edge of the square-meshed panel, which is the part closest to the codline, shall be no more than 9 metres from the codline.
Onboard observer programme
1. Without prejudice to Commission Regulation (EC) No 665/2008 ( 3 ) , each Member State whose vessels are concerned by the technical measures referred to in Article 2 shall immediately establish an onboard observer programme to record the effectiveness of those measures. In particular, the observer programme shall estimate haddock, whiting and cod catches and discards with a precision of no less than 20 %.
2. Member States shall submit to the Commission a report on the selective performance of the gear, including the total catches and discards of vessels subject to the observer programme no later than 15 October of each year in which the programme is implemented.
Entry into force and application
This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union .
Article 2 shall apply from 26 September 2012.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
