During the last STECF meeting, A. Laurec joined the meeting and exposed us the targets of the Commission (DG XIV) from 1992 until now and what they should become from now to 2002 and after 2002. The following relation of his speech has only been made following my paper notes and have been checked by Georges Tserpes from his memory.

A new basic regulation has been enforced in 1992 and another one will be in 2002, after the negotiation of the CFP. Nevertheless 2002 should not be expected as a "revolution". Numerous existing disposition should continue after that date (12 miles rule, relative stability, etc.). 2002 will be a major event only if it is proved that the CFP has been inefficient.

The Commission's proposal since 1992 have ever been based on the text of the "Mid term review" (1991) and on the basic regulation.

The fundamental problems still to solve are:

make the control more efficient

complete the catch assessment by other input (efforts, capacities)

link together the various aspects of the CFP (conservation, structures)

think in a multiannual way

The problem of the control has to be addressed to a next STECF meeting. The Member States have to produce reliable fishery statistics with cross checking between the different data types.

Other input: The Member States should try to manage fishing efforts. This more or less succeeded in the Atlantic, leading to more reliable data collection.

Link between conservation and structures: this is more or less redundant with the later point: if we want to build a link between fishing capacity and resources we have to take fishing effort into account.

Multiannual scheme: too much energy is devoted at present in the Council of Ministers to fight for annual TACs and quotas. Until now the Commission did not succeed to improve a Multiannual management but the Commission is rather obstinate !

The DG XIV is very unhappy because there is very few researches on these 4 topics.

The role of the economist should increase in the advising procedure. For example they have to advice on the problem of the ITQ's market.

Scientist should continue to make stock assessment.

The studies do not need to be complicated but only acceptable.

At present the industry and the managers refuse systematically the conclusions of the scientists. There is an urgent need of economical advises to make the biological advises acceptable.

The lack of economic studies should not continue to be an excuse to do nothing.

Relationship between fisheries and environment: to avoid emotional reactions, the scientist have to quantify their advises. It should be gateways between ecologists and fishery scientists.

Data collection: the Commission's subsides devoted to data collection have been increased from 1 to 10 ME but the results are still unsatisfactory. So a new regulation will be proposed, based on both biology and economy. The Commission will define the detail of the data to be collected on the bases of the STECF's proposal. The results will be evaluated every 3 or 5 years, partly by the STECF.

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