Common fisheries policy: collection and management of fisheries data, Community framework

The committee adopted the report (consultation procedure) by Elspeth ATTWOOLL (ELDR, UK) approving, with amendment, the Commission proposal on a Community framework for the collection and management of fisheries data needed to conduct the common fisheries policy. The report stressed that the regulation must be given a clear political orientation, in the sense that the processing of data must be done in such a way as to help those taking decisions to come to conclusions. It felt that it was not enough to transmit data directly to international organisations and technical and advisory bodies, as currently provided for in the regulation. Unless the Commission itself was involved in the procedure, there was a danger that the data would be given insufficient weight. The committee accordingly adopted amendments intended to clarify certain aspects of the regulation, to speed its progress, to give it more weight by requiring Member States to transmit aggregated data to the Commission and to ensure closer involvement by the Commission itself in the evaluation of the data.