Considerations on COM(2014)135 - EU position in the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)

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dossier COM(2014)135 - EU position in the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).
document COM(2014)135 EN
date March 10, 2014
 
(1) Article 38 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, in conjunction with Article 39 thereof, provides that one of the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy is to assure the availability of supplies.

(2) Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council[4] provides that the Union shall 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. It also provides that the Union shall apply the precautionary approach to fisheries managements, and shall aim to ensure that exploitation of living marine biological resources restores and maintains population of harvested species above levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yield. It also provides that the Union shall aim to take management and conservation measures based on best available scientific advice, to promote fishing methods that contribute to more selective fishing and the avoidance and reduction, as far as possible, of unwanted catches, to fish with low impact on marine ecosystem and fishery resources and to gradually eliminate discards. Besides, the regulation specifically provides that these principles shall be applied by the Union in its external policy.

(3) By Council Decision of 9 June 1986[5] the European Community approved the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (the Convention), which established the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The ICCAT is responsible for the adoption of measures designed to ensure the long-term conservation and sustainable use of the fishery resources in the Convention Area and to safeguard the marine eco-systems in which these resources occur. Such measures may become binding upon the Union.

(4) Pursuant to Article 218(9) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the position to be adopted on behalf of the Union in Regional Fisheries Management Organisations when they are called upon to adopt acts having legal effects, with the exception of acts supplementing or amending their institutional framework, must be adopted by Council decision, on a proposal from the Commission.

(5) In view of the evolving nature of fishery resources in the Convention Area and the consequent need for the position of the Union to take account of new developments, including new statistical, biological and other information presented before or during the ICCAT annual Meeting , procedures must be established, in line with the principle of sincere cooperation among the Union institutions enshrined in Article 13(2) TEU, for the year-to-year specification of the Union position.