Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Fisheries - Conservation of marine resources - Fishing quotas - Catches in Faeroese waters - Division between the Member States of the available catch - Control measures for compliance with quotas - Applicability - Imminent exhaustion of the quota allocated to a Member State - Obligation of the Member State concerned to prohibit fishing provisionally - Possibility of increasing the quota by exchanges with other Member States - No effect

( Council Regulation No 2057/82, Art . 10(2 ), and Council Regulation No 6/85 )

Summary

Once the agreement on fisheries with the Government of Denmark and the Home Government of the Faeroe Islands concerning access to and conservation of fishery resources has laid down a limit for catches by Community fishermen in Faeroese waters and quotas have consequently been fixed for the Member States, the relevant rules concerning compliance with those quotas, such as Article 10 of Regulation No 2057/82 establishing certain control measures, must be applied, even if there is no express reference to them in the regulation dividing the catch quotas between the Member States, if compliance with the agreement, and in particular compliance with the catch ceilings available to the Community, is not to be jeopardized .

A Member State cannot rely on the mere possibility of obtaining an increase in its quota by means of an exchange of quotas negotiated with another Member State in order to free itself from its obligation under Article 10(2 ) of Regulation No 2057/82 to provisionally prohibit fishing by vessels flying its flag or registered in that Member State from the date from which catches subject to quota taken by those vessels are deemed to have exhausted the State' s quota . Any delay in the provisional closure of fishing is likely to cause the quota to be exceeded if such negotiations, the result of which is uncertain, fail or if the quantities obtained are insufficient to cover the catches made in the meantime . It follows that any agreement for the exchange of quotas concluded with another Member State for the purpose of increasing a quota must take place either before the exhaustion of the initial quota or after the provisional prohibition of fishing .