EU market for fishery and aquaculture products

KEY POINTS

The scheme covers 5 main areas:

• professional organisations;
• marketing standards;
• consumer information;
• competition rules;
• market intelligence (collecting and analysing relevant market data to use as a basis for decision-making).

Professional organisations

• The regulation sets out a number of specific aims for producer organisations including promoting sustainable fishing and reducing discards.
• The reform also focuses on the collective management of activities through production and marketing plans. The rules and structure of these plans are set out in a subsequent implementing regulation, and the European Commission has set out recommendations to facilitate the role of competent national authorities in this respect.
• Rules on the recognition of producer organisations and inter-branch organisations are set out in the text and in a further implementing regulation.

Marketing standards

Common marketing standards are established for fishery products regardless of whether their origin is from within or outside of the EU. Those fishery products that do not comply with these standards may still be used for purposes other than direct human consumption (for example, petfood, cosmetics).

Consumer information

Labelling for consumers must indicate:

• the commercial name of the species (the name or names accepted or permitted locally or regionally in a country) and its scientific name;
• the production method;
• where the product was caught or farmed and the type of fishing gear used;
• whether the product has been defrosted;
• the expiry date, where appropriate.

Competition rules

The common organisation of the markets is subject to EU competition rules, but there are certain exceptions to ensure the proper functioning of the policy and the achievement of EU objectives (e.g. adjustment of members’ level of production).

Market intelligence

The Commission is to provide market intelligence for professional organisations, stakeholders and policymakers through the dissemination of economic knowledge, market analysis and price monitoring.

COVID-19 pandemic — amendment to the regulation

• Regulation (EU) 2020/560 amends Regulation (EU) No 1379/2013 introducing specific measures to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been a significant drop in demand for fishery and aquaculture products following the COVID-19 pandemic with serious socio-economic consequences in those communities where fishing and aquaculture play a major role.
• The amended regulation aims to allow a more flexible redistribution of financial resources within operational programmes in each EU country and to simplify the procedure for amending operational programmes when introducing new measures.
• Given the important role of producer organisations in managing the crisis, the ceiling for financial support to production and marketing plans is substantially increased and EU countries are allowed to grant advances of up to 100% of that financial support. In addition, the possibility to use the storage aid mechanism was extended to aquaculture producer organisations,