By Council Decision (EU) 2022/314 (1), the Union acceded to the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fishery Resources in the North Pacific Ocean (the ‘Convention’), which established the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC).
(2)
The NPFC is responsible for the adoption of conservation and management measures to achieve the objectives of the Convention. Such measures may become binding upon the Union.
(3)
Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) provides that the Union is 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. It also provides that the Union is to apply the precautionary approach to fisheries management, and is to 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 further provides that the Union is to take conservation and management measures based on best available scientific advice, to support the development of scientific knowledge and advice, to gradually eliminate discards, and to promote fishing methods that contribute to more selective fishing, the avoidance and reduction, as far as possible, of unwanted catches, and fishing with low impact on marine ecosystem and fishery resources. Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 specifically provides that those objectives and principles are to be applied by the Union in the conduct of its external fisheries relations.
(4)
As stated in the Joint communication by the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the Commission of 10 November 2016 entitled ‘International ocean governance: an agenda for the future of oceans’, and the Council conclusions of 24 March 2017 of the same title, the promotion of measures to support and enhance the effectiveness of regional fisheries management organisations and, where relevant, improve their governance is central to the Union’s action in those fora.
(5)
The Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions of 16 January 2018 entitled ‘A European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy’ refers to specific measures to reduce plastics and marine pollution as well as to reduce the loss or abandonment at sea of fishing gear.
(6)
It is appropriate to establish the position to be taken on the Union’s behalf within the NPFC for the period 2022-2027, as the NPFC conservation and enforcement measures will be binding on the Union and capable of decisively influencing the content of Union law, namely Council Regulations (EC) No 1005/2008 (3) and (EC) No 1224/2009 (4) and Regulation (EU) 2017/2403 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5).
(7)
In view of the evolving nature of fishery resources in the area to which the Convention applies, as defined in Article 4(1) of the Convention (the ‘Convention area’) and the consequent need for the position of the Union to take account of new developments, including new scientific and other relevant information presented before or during the meetings of the NPFC, procedures should be established, in line with the principle of mutual sincere cooperation among the Union institutions enshrined in Article 13(2) of the Treaty on European Union, for the year-to-year specification of the Union position for the period 2022-2027,
