Rules for access to certain Community fishing areas and resources

OBJECTIVE: to establish identical conditions of access to regulated fishing areas for vessels from all the Member States. COMMUNITY MEASURE: Regulation (EC) No 685/95 concerning the conditions of access to certain Community fishing areas and resources. SUBSTANCE: This regulation lays down mechanisms designed to ensure respect for the criteria of non-discrimination, relative stability of fishing activities, and no increase in the fishing effort in the fishing areas concerned. To this end, and taking as their point of departure lists of named fishing vessels for each fishery, the Member States are called upon, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to establish fishery plans, where the proposed fishing effort should respect the three criteria mentioned above. In certain cases, compliance with the criterion of no increase in the fishing effort can only be guaranteed by establishing arrangements to regulate this effort. Although these measures apply in general to demersal species, they also apply to fishing for pelagic species in specific cases. In certain particularly sensitive areas, the regulation lays down the framework within which the national fishing effort must remain, particularly with regard to the Irish box. The fishing effort in these areas must be limited to current levels for all Member States, the number of vessels flying the flag of Spain being limited to 40. The regulation also provides for restrictive control measures to ensure the implementation of the new access regime. In this respect, the Member States will have to adopt national measures to guarantee that the limits on the fishing effort are not exceeded. In addition, and in the hope of improving the management of the resource, a number of accompanying measures are envisaged, particularly certain exchanges of quotas of fishing possibilities, on a multiannual basis, between Belgium, Spain, France and Portugal, as well as certain measures concerning reciprocal access for vessels in Spanish and Portuguese waters. Furthermore, the text aims to strengthen the technical conservation measures in Western waters and provides for a Community financial contribution towards expenditure incurred by Member States for the purpose of ensuring compliance with the Community system for the conservation and management of fishery resources, in order to provide for additional financial support for Ireland, including support for operating expenditure. �