Illegal fishing

Measures concerning the first priority were presented by the Commission in the form of a proposal for Regulation 1005/2008 (amended by Commission Regulation 1010/2009, Commission Regulation 86/2010, Commission Regulation 202/2011), which the Council adopted in 2008. The Regulation was based on the present Article 43 TFEU. It provided for a ban of the landing of fish from IUU fishing activities in the EU: "The importation into the Community of fishing products, obtained from IUU fishing, shall be prohibited" (Article 12). In order to make this ban effective, each importation of fish into the EU had to be accompanied by a catch certificate, issued by the competent authority of the flag state of the fishing vessel (Article 12(2) and Annex II of Regulation 1005/2008). This document certified that the catches had been made in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations and measures.

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Furthermore, the Regulation established a presumption that a ship was engaged in IUU fishing when it did not comply with a number of conditions, such as fishing without a valid license, fishing in a closed area, using prohibited or non-compliant fishing gear, not fulfilling its obligations to record, or even obstructing the work of inspecting or compliance-observing officials (Article 3). Third country fishing vessels were obliged to land fish only in designated EU ports, where the vessel could be inspected by the competent authorities of Member States (Article 4). The arrival in such a designated port had to be notified three days in advance (Article 6), and landing of fish was only permitted when the vessel had a valid catch certificate and complied with the other legal requirements of the Regulation. Also the transferring of fish from one vessel to another ("transhipment") was only allowed within a designated port.