Council Decision (EU) 2021/1875 of 22 October 2021 concerning the position to be adopted on behalf of the Union in the annual consultations with the United Kingdom to agree on total allowable catches

• CELEX: Decision (EU) 2021/1875
• Articles: 5

Article 1

1.   The position to be adopted on behalf of the Union in the annual consultations with the United Kingdom on fishing opportunities for shared stocks , including deep-sea stocks, under Article 498 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the other part (the ‘Trade and Cooperation Agreement’) is set out in the Annex to this Decision.

2.   The specification of the Union’s position, as referred to in paragraph 1, shall be conducted on an annual basis in accordance with Article 2.

Article 2

1.   The regular and full involvement of the Council throughout the annual consultations shall be ensured by means of extensive coordination and cooperation between the Council and the Commission.

2.   Before the start of and throughout the annual consultations with the United Kingdom, the Commission shall take the steps necessary to ensure that the position to be expressed on behalf of the Union takes account of the latest scientific advice and other relevant information available, in accordance with the principles and orientations set out in the Annex. The position shall be reflected in the written record documenting the arrangements made between the Union and the United Kingdom resulting from the consultations under Article 498 of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

3.   To this effect, the Commission shall send to the Council, sufficiently in advance of the annual consultations and, where necessary, in the course of those consultations, a written document, based on the advice and information referred to in paragraph 2, setting out the particulars of the proposed specification of the Union’s position for discussion and endorsement of the details of the position to be expressed on the Union’s behalf. The Council shall remain seized of the matter throughout the process, and the Commission shall send to the Council, in sufficient time before signature of the written record referred to in paragraph 2, the Union’s position for approval of the detailed results of the annual consultations.

4.   The process referred to in this Article shall include in situ coordination meetings, presentations, debriefings and discussions, and the full involvement of national delegations in the annual consultations, including as part of the Union delegation, and, when needed, in technical meetings.

5.   If, in the course of the annual consultations, it is impossible for the Union to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom, and in order for the Union’s position to take account of new elements, the Commission shall refer the matter to the Council.

6.   If, after the conclusion of the annual consultations, it is appropriate to amend the TACs in the year or years for which they were agreed, the Commission shall, in sufficient time and on the basis of the latest scientific and other relevant information and in accordance with the principles and orientations set out in the Annex, submit to the Council a new written document setting out the particulars of the proposed specification of the Union’s position regarding such amendment, for discussion and endorsement of the details of the position to be expressed on the Union’s behalf, before the signature of a written record.

Article 3

This Decision shall apply until 30 June 2027. It shall be assessed as necessary and, where appropriate, revised by the Council upon a proposal from the Commission. A review shall in any event take place by 30 June 2023.

Article 4

This Decision shall enter into force on the date of its adoption.

Schedules & Appendices

ANNEX

ANNEX

THE POSITION TO BE ADOPTED ON BEHALF OF THE UNION IN THE ANNUAL CONSULTATIONS WITH THE UNITED KINGDOM TO AGREE ON TOTAL ALLOWABLE CATCHES

1.   PRINCIPLES

In the framework of the annual consultations with the United Kingdom, the Union shall:

(a)

seek to ensure that the fishing opportunities agreed are consistent with international law, and in particular with the provisions of the 1982 United Nations (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea and of the 1995 UN Agreement relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks;

(b)

seek to ensure that the Union’s international commitments are respected;

(c)

seek consistency and synergy with the policies that the Union is pursuing as part of its bilateral fisheries relations with other third countries and within regional fisheries management organisations, and ensure consistency with its other policies, in particular in the fields of external relations, employment, the environment, trade, development, and research and innovation;

(d)

ensure that the TACs and other functionally linked measures are set in a way which is consistent with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and fully take into account any measures or guidance established by the Specialised Committee on Fisheries (SCF);

(e)

seek to ensure that TACs are jointly determined in accordance with the common fisheries policy (CFP) objective of ensuring that fisheries are environmentally sustainable in the long term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, including the core conservation objective of the CFP, namely MSY, as well as with the applicable multiannual plans;

(f)

seek alignment with the Council conclusions of 19 March 2012 on a communication from the Commission on the external dimension of the CFP;

(g)

seek to ensure non-discriminatory rules for the Union fleet based on the same principles and standards as those applicable under Union law;

(h)

seek to establish timelines for the annual consultations on fishing opportunities;

(i)

seek to ensure consistency with the Union’s environmental legislation, in particular with Directive 2008/56/EC, as well as with other Union policies.

2.   ORIENTATIONS

The Union is to make every effort to reach an agreement with the United Kingdom on fishing opportunities (TACs and their functionally linked measures), based on the approach outlined below.

In doing so, the Commission shall work closely with the Council during the annual consultations, in order to:

(a)

seek to establish TACs based on the best available scientific advice, in order to achieve the MSY exploitation rate;

(b)

seek to establish TACs under the precautionary approach to fisheries where such scientific advice on MSY exploitation rates is not available;

(c)

seek to prevent overexploitation of the relevant stocks by setting TACs at a level similar to earlier years where no scientific advice is available;

(d)

seek to combine different scientific advice for establishing the TACs, including where such advice combines MSY and precautionary advice, for TACs with a mismatch between the advice area and the management areas, or where TACs combine more than one species, and seek an appropriate way of taking into account advice when establishing the TACs for skates and rays;

(e)

seek to establish TACs with MSY assessment and F MSY advice in accordance with the MSY objective of the CFP and the applicable multiannual plans; where the multiannual plans allow for the use of the F MSY ranges as provided by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the Union should seek to make use of those provisions, if the conditions set out in those multiannual plans are fulfilled;

(f)

seek to set TACs based on the precautionary approach corresponding to the headline advice in the ICES scientific advice sheet with precautionary advice for: (i) by-catch stocks (under multiannual plans); (ii) target stocks (under multiannual plans) where ICES provides precautionary advice only; and (iii) TACs with multiannual precautionary advice, where stability should be pursued;

(g)

seek to take into account the difficulty of fishing all stocks in a mixed fishery at the MSY level at the same time, and in particular where it is difficult to avoid the phenomenon of choke species, including TACs with 0-catch advice for either target or by-catch TACs; the Union should seek, where relevant under the multiannual plans, to accompany the TAC level with remedial measures in the relevant sea basins;

(h)

seek to establish TACs for scientific or monitoring purposes in line with the scientific advice;

(i)

seek consistency with the Union’s applicable law in relation to specific species and stocks;

(j)

seek convergence on the species for which fishing is to be prohibited, based on scientific advice, including the general prohibition on fisheries on deep-sea sharks;

(k)

seek agreed approaches on the method and application of the adjustments to the agreed TACs following the application of exemptions to the landing obligation ( de minimis and survivability exemptions from the obligation to land all catches); the Union should seek the highest possible level of agreed approaches for such exemptions in a manner consistent with Article 15 of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013;

(l)

seek agreement on the approach for the conservation of northern seabass, based on ICES scientific advice;

(m)

seek to agree on other functionally linked measures to TACs, in particular with regard to existing special conditions and inter-area flexibilities, in line with Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013, in particular Article 15(8) and (9) thereof;

(n)

seek to identify, based on the best available scientific advice, and in accordance with Article 499(4) of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the stocks to be regarded as ‘special stocks’ for the purpose of establishing provisional TACs where the annual consultations can not be concluded in a timely manner in accordance with Article 498(2) of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement;

(o)

seek to agree joint requests to ICES where a need for additional advice is identified;

(p)

seek to ensure that TAC levels, in accordance with scientific advice, are established in time for the start of the fishing year for sandeel, sprat and Norway pout in the North Sea, where the fishing year does not follow the calendar year;

(q)

seek to continue the existing provisional quota-swap mechanism until the SCF establishes a permanent mechanism.