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

The European Parliament adopted its report drafted by Mrs. Elspeth ATTWOOL (ELDR, UK) concerning a Council Regulation establishing a Community framework for the collection and management of the fisheries data needed to conduct the common fisheries policy. Parliament's amendments related to: - a change of emphasis in Article 3 to the establishment of multiannual aggregated and science-based datasets which incorporate biological and economic information (as opposed to datasets 'suitable for scientific analysis' in the Commission's proposal); - In Article 4, the data needed to evaluate the economic state of the industry, those being valid which have been obtained from studies and samples which are sufficiently wide in view of the objective pursued: as regards the fishing fleets: the volume of sales, the production costs, data enabling the jobs at sea to be counted and classified; - the introduction of a new paragraph in Article 4 on the data required to monitor changes in aquatic ecosystems; - Member States would be required to submit to the European Commission the data covered by this Regulation, as well as to the appropriate international organisations; - the provision by the Commission to the Parliament and the Council of an evaluation report at yearly intervals, the first one being by 31/12/01, as well as a report on the utilisation by the Community of the data collected under this Regulation.�