Common fisheries policy CFP: control, behaviour which seriously infringed the rules in 2000

The committee adopted the report by Elspeth ATTWOOLL (ELDR, UK) on the Commission communication. Expressing dismay at the major discrepancies in the penalties applied for equivalent infringements between the Member States, the committee said that guidance was needed as regards the level of penalty to be imposed for identical infringements. It therefore advocated establishing a framework for classifying infringements according to their scale and seriousness and the corresponding penalties. The Commission was urged to look into the possibility of introducing a uniform system of minimum penalties across the EU in order to ensure equal treatment and hence increase fishermen's confidence in the fairness of the common fisheries policy. The report also called for the notification of infringements to be re-examined as part of the CFP reform process. The committee was critical of the failure of a number of Member States to comply with the reporting requirements and to provide proper background information, which meant that it was impossible to draw firm conclusions from the set of data available. The Commission was urged to work with the Member States to ensure that the necessary information was provided in due time in future and to inform Parliament by 15 April each year if Member States were failing to fulfil their reporting obligations. The Commission itself was also criticised for the delay in presenting its report for 2001 and was asked to ensure that it submitted its future reports in good time and provided a fuller and more contextual analysis of the data it had received. �