European fisheries and aquaculture statistics
PURPOSE: to improve the relevance of European fisheries and aquaculture statistics.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament acts in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: reliable, comprehensive, and timely European statistics are essential for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating Union policies and legislation related to fisheries and aquaculture, particularly under the scope of the common fisheries policy (CFP). These statistics also make it possible to assess the impact of fisheries and aquaculture on business development, food security, water quality, sensitive species, habitats, climate change and public health, as well as to evaluate market functioning and public health.
In particular, there is a growing need for more detailed and timely European statistics to support implementing EU policies, legislation, as well as various Commission initiatives, including the action plans for organic production, sustainable aquaculture, a sustainable blue economy, algae sector development, energy transition in fisheries and aquaculture, and marine ecosystem protection.
European fisheries and aquaculture statistics are currently collected on the basis of five legal acts that do not provide full consistency across statistical domains. A common legal framework is needed to ensure consistency, streamline statistical processes, and enable a more holistic approach. Parliament's resolutions also highlighted the importance of European statistics on fisheries and aquaculture.
CONTENT: the Commission proposal for a Regulation on European fisheries and aquaculture statistics aims to improve their relevance by responding more effectively to user needs. The proposal: (i) expands statistical coverage, for example for organic aquaculture and EU aquaculture establishments; (ii) reduces the volume of confidential data; and (iii) addresses quality issues in reported data. Furthermore, in line with the EU priority on simplification, EFAS replaces five existing regulations with a single one, and reduces the administrative burden on Member States.
A key innovative aspect of the proposal is the use of existing databases, set up by EU law and available to the Commission, to produce official European statistics on catches and Union fishing fleet, thus reducing the administrative burden on the Member States.
Furthermore, the proposal has been designed to take into account the data needs of key international organisations, such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), as well as regional fisheries management organisations. The proposal enables Eurostat to transmit the data on behalf of Member States to these organisations, thereby reducing duplication of effort and alleviating the administrative burden associated with multiple reporting obligations.
The total estimated cost of producing European fisheries statistics is around EUR 5.6 million per year for the 27 EU Member States and the European Commission, of which around 5% is covered by the European Commission. The legislative proposal is expected to reduce the costs of collecting data on catches by EUR 1.2 million per year.