Title II, Chapter III, Section 5, Article 29 · Regulation (EU) 2024/2594

Contents

Article 29Authorisation to land, tranship and for other use of ports#

1.Port Member States shall ensure that, following a notification transmitted pursuant to Article 28, the flag State of the fishing vessel intending to land or tranship or, where the fishing vessel has engaged in transhipment operations outside a port, the flag State or States of the donor vessels complete Part B of the PSC form to confirm or otherwise that:

(a)the fishing vessel which declared having caught the fish had sufficient quota for the species declared;

(b)the quantities of fish on board have been duly reported and taken into account for the calculation of any catch or effort limitations that may be applicable;

(c)the fishing vessels declared having caught the fish had authorisation to fish in the areas declared;

(d)the presence of the vessel in the area of catch declared has been verified according to VMS data.

2.The master of the fishing vessel shall not commence the landing or transhipment operations or make use of port services before authorisation has been given by the competent authorities of the port Member State by duly completing Part C of the PSC form through the NEAFC website, and the estimated time of arrival reported in the prior notification (PSC1 or PSC2) has expired. Such authorisation shall only be given if the confirmation from the flag State referred to in paragraph 1 has been received. However, landing, transhipment operations and the use of other port services may commence prior to estimated time of arrival with permission from the competent authorities of the port State.

3.By way of derogation from paragraph 2, the port Member State may authorise all or part of a landing in the absence of the confirmation from the flag State referred to in paragraph 1, subject to the following conditions:

(a)the fish concerned shall be kept in storage under the control of the competent authorities;

(b)the fish concerned shall only be released to be sold, taken over or transported once the confirmation referred to in paragraph 1 has been received; and

(c)if the confirmation has not been received within 14 days of the landing, the competent authorities of the port Member State may confiscate and dispose of the fish in accordance with national rules.

4.Landing, transhipment and other use of port services shall not be authorised if the port Member State receives clear evidence that the catch on board was taken in contravention of applicable requirements of a Contracting Party in respect of areas under its national jurisdiction.

5.The competent authorities of the port Member State shall without delay notify their decision on whether or not an authorisation for landing, transhipment or other use of port services has been granted to the master of the vessel or the representative of the master, to the flag State of the vessel and to the NEAFC Secretariat by completing, where appropriate, Part C of the PSC form.

Defined terms · 29

Show every defined term

bottom fishing
means the use of fishing gear that is likely to contact the seafloor during the normal course of fishing operations;
closed bottom fishing areas
means areas closed to bottom fishing for the protection of VMEs in the Regulatory Area, as specified in point 8 of Annex IV;
Contracting Parties
means the Contracting Parties to the Convention;
Convention
means the Convention on future multilateral cooperation in North-East Atlantic fisheries;
Convention Area
means the areas:
declaration
means a report of a fishing activity that is taking or has taken place at the time of its recording and transmission;
EFCA
means the European Fisheries Control Agency established by Regulation (EU) 2019/473 of the European Parliament and of the Council;
electronic data
means all documents, reports, messages and forms electronically transmitted and received pursuant to the provisions of the NEAFC Scheme;
electronic fishing logbook
means the record by electronic means of fishing activity details recorded by the master of a fishing vessel and transmitted to the flag State from the prior notification of entry into the Regulatory Area until the exit from the Regulatory Area;
encounter
means the catch of VME indicator species above the following threshold levels:
existing bottom fishing areas
means the portion of the Regulatory Area where bottom fishing occurred in the period between 1987 to 2007, as defined by the coordinates set out in Annex III;
exploratory bottom fishing
means all commercial bottom fishing within restricted bottom fishing areas or, if there are significant changes to the conduct and technology of bottom fishing, within existing bottom fishing areas;
fishery resources
means the resources of fish, molluscs, crustaceans and including sedentary species, excluding, in so far as they are dealt with by other international agreements, highly migratory species listed in Annex I of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982, and anadromous stocks;
fishing activities
means fishing, including joint fishing operations, fish processing operations, the transhipment or landing of fishery resources or products thereof and any other commercial activity in preparation for, or related to, fishing, including packaging, transporting, refuelling or resupplying;
fishing trip
means, with regard to fishing activities in the Regulatory Area, any voyage of a fishing vessel during which fishing activities are conducted from the time of entry into until its exit from the Regulatory Area;
fishing vessel
means any vessel used or intended for use for the purpose of commercial exploitation of fishery resources, including fish processing vessels and vessels engaged in transhipment;
FMC
means a land-based fisheries monitoring centre of the flag State;
joint fishing operation
means any operation between two or more fishing vessels where catch is taken from the fishing gear of one fishing vessel to another;
message
means the standardised form in which reports are exchanged between Contracting Parties and the NEAFC Secretariat or between Member States and the Commission;
NEAFC
means the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission;
non-Contracting Party vessel
means any vessel engaged in fishing activities that is flagged neither in a Contracting Party nor in an active cooperating non-Contracting Party to NEAFC, or any fishing vessel for which there are reasonable grounds for suspecting it to be without nationality;
port
means any place on shore used for landing or for the provision of services in relation to, or in support of, fishing activities, or a place on or close to the shore designated by a Contracting Party for transhipping of fishery resources;
prior notification
means a report on the intention to perform an activity in the future;
regulated resources
means the fishery resources which are subject to recommendations under the Convention and are listed in Annex I;
Regulatory Area
means the waters of the Convention Area which lie beyond the waters under the fisheries jurisdiction of Contracting Parties;
report
means the standardised information related to fishing activities recorded by electronic means;
significant adverse impacts
means impacts referred to in paragraphs 17 to 20 of the FAO International Guidelines for the Management of Deep-Sea Fisheries in the High Seas;
transhipment operation
means the direct transfer of any quantity of fishery resources or products thereof retained on board from one fishing vessel to another;
VMS
means a fishing vessel monitoring system providing the competent authorities with data at regular intervals on the position, course and speed of the fishing vessel;