Commission Report (2002): Czech Republic

• Progress since the last Regular Report
• Overall assessment
• Conclusion

Chapter 8: Fisheries

Progress since the last Regular Report

Some further progress has been made in the area of fisheries over the past year concerning structural actions and market policy.

Since the last Regular Report, no particular development has taken place as regards resource management, inspection and control.

In the field of structural actions, good progress was achieved with the setting up of a managing authority for the Community Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG).

As regards market policy, the Czech Statistical Office has continued to collect market data on quantities and prices of Czech fish production.

As concerns state aid to the fisheries sector, support programmes from the state budget via subsidies granted for monitoring fisheries productivity continued in 2002.

As regards administrative capacity, no particular developments have been recorded concerning the establishment of a separate fisheries unit at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Overall assessment

Since the Czech Republic is a landlocked country, only parts of the acquis on fisheries are applicable for it.

Legislative alignment regarding the control of imported fish needs to be completed and, in order to establish a well-functioning monitoring system for the control of fish resources and imports, co-operation and co-ordination between relevant authorities should be improved.

The data collection system on fish products is operating in line with the acquis, and the price and monitoring systems are in place.

Preparations for the fisheries structural policy, in particular as regards programming documents, are well underway.

Conclusion

In its 1997 Opinion, the Commission concluded that for the Czech Republic, fisheries should not represent a problem for accession.

Since the opinion, the Czech Republic has progressed satisfactorily on administrative capacity. However, the Czech Republic fisheries policy is not yet fully aligned with the acquis in this area.

Negotiations on this chapter have been provisionally closed. The Czech Republic has not requested any transitional arrangements in this area. The Czech Republic is generally meeting the commitments it has made in the accession negotiations in this field.

In order to complete preparations for membership the Czech Republic`s efforts now need to focus on completing legislative transposition in particular regarding the control of imported fish and further strengthening the administrative capacity to implement the Common Fisheries Policy.

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