Evaluation of the impact of Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009 of 20 November 2009 "establishing a Community control system for ensuring compliance with rules of the common fisheries policy" : executive summary

The main goal of this study is to investigate to what extent Council Regulation (EC) No 12224/2009 establishing a Community control system in the European Union achieved its general objective of establishing "a Community system for control, inspection and enforcement to ensure compliance with the rules of the common fisheries policy". This responds to the provisions of Article 118(3) of the Control Regulation, requiring the Commission to undertake an evaluation of the impact of the Control Regulation on the Common Fisheries Policy (hereinafter "CFP") five years after the entry into force of the Regulation itself. It should be noted that between 2003 and 2012 the objective of the CFP (Council Regulation (EC) 2371/2002) was to "ensure exploitation of living aquatic resources that provides sustainable economic, environmental and social conditions". Since 2013 that objective evolved to "ensure that fishing and aquaculture activities are environmentally sustainable in the long-term and are managed in a way that is consistent with the objectives of achieving economic, social and employment benefits, and of contributing to the availability of food supplies", as laid down in Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council. The implementation of the 2002 CFP was enforced until 2009 by an earlier version of the Control Regulation (Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93). However, as the implementation of the CFP progressed and was refined, it became apparent that the existing legislative framework on control needed a thorough revision and that a shift was necessary towards a new legislation which would inter alia be more comprehensive, promote a level playing field in the implementation of the CFP across the EU, improve the culture of compliance and integrate the use of modern technologies. At the same time, the 2007 report of the Court of Auditors and the Impact Assessment report (SEC(2008)2760) identified a number of major weaknesses in the former Control Regulation, which can be summarised as follows: 1] The data on quota uptake was considered unreliable and monitoring rudimentary; 2] Limited effectiveness of national inspections; 3] The systems for following up on infringements and imposing sanctions were often found inappropriate; and 4] Fishing overcapacity was considered to jeopardise compliance with rules and effectiveness of controls. Those elements led to the adoption of the present Control Regulation in 2009, which was complemented by additional detailed rules formulated in the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 404/2011.