Good practice guidelines for developing management recommendations for the EU fleet operating outside European waters – draft for commenting
One of many FarFish project outputs is the development a European voluntary CEN standard that will be published as CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) after going through an open CEN process. The focus of this standard is to provide guidelines for the development of so-called Management Recommendations for the EU fleet operating outside EU waters, which have been in development in the FarFish project over the past three years. The aim of creating these guidelines is, firstly, to improve the cooperation between the EU distant water fleet fishing in the waters of a third State and the authorities involved, i.e. both regional and relevant EU authorities. Secondly, applying the framework suggested in these guidelines will improve data flow and transparency between the EU operators and the authorities.
Creating Management Recommendations means following a framework where the operators themselves are given new management responsibilities. They become directly involved in the management and decision-making process of the fishery in question, as they are given the responsibility to develop strategies to reach specific fisheries management objectives set by the relevant authorities. Such strategies are to contain a set of fisheries management measures that together will reach the authorities’ pre-defined objectives and will only be implemented given the authorities’ approval. A draft of the guidelines for making Management Recommendations has already been developed and tested within the FarFish project and serves as basis for the standard.
The CEN process for developing the CWA standard is a one-year process. During this time, FarFish researchers will, in cooperation with the stakeholders that are voluntarily participating in the process, develop a final version of the guidelines through numerous physical and online meetings. Draft versions of the standard will be made publicly available for feedback during the course of its development, which will be announced on FarFish and CEN websites.
Further development of draft CWA based on initial commenting phase – November 1st 2020 to May 24th 2021
CEN workshop meeting for discussing the CWA draft version 2, (virtual meeting) as part of the FarFish Work Package leader and Case Study leader meeting – May 25th 2020
Publishing CWA Draft version 2 for feedback – July 1st 2021
Final public commenting phase, draft publicly available for comments on the FarFish website with commenting possibility directly to the FarFish convener, and on the CEN website – July 1st to September 1st 2021.
Finalising CWA Draft version 3 – Nov. 1st 2021
CEN Workshop Consensus meeting, following the transfer of the draft CWA to full CEN, at final FarFish meeting in Brussels – Nov . 9th 2021
Publication by CEN of the CWA – January 2022
