Fisheries sector: criteria and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance

The implementation of the provisions of the London Convention relating to the re-measuring of the capacity of vessels in gross tonnage (GT) and the extension of its provisions to all vessels of the fishing fleet of the European Union, following the adoption of Regulation (EEC) No 2930/86 defining the characteristics of fishing vessels, will result in the Commission having to revise a certain number of texts which use the tonnage of vessels as a parameter for intervention in its structural actions. It was in this context that the Commission presented a proposal which sought to amend certain provisions of the Regulation applying the FIFG: - the amendment of Article 8 and Annex III of the FIFG Regulation seeks to replace the expression in GRT of the threshold tonnage subject to certain measures with the GT unit of tonnage; - the amendment of the scales of assistance relating to fishing fleets in Annex IV of the FIFG Regulation seeks eventually to replace the premium scales in ECU/GRT with premium scales in ECU/GT. As from 1.1.2004, only the GT unit of tonnage shall be referred to in the present Regulation; - finally, reference to the committee which will allow the multiannual guideline programmes to be adopted will have to be changed. �