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PECH Committee said ‘No’ to installing surveillance cameras onboard EU fishing vessels.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries last week, voted against installing surveillance cameras onboard EU fishing vessels.
The result of the vote means that the European Parliament’s Spanish negotiator, Clare Aguilera, must return to the drawing board. She must find a new compromise that a majority in the European Parliament can agree on before the final vote in the European Parliament’s plenary session in March.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries (PECH Committee) voted last Monday on the new control proposal which threatened to introduce camera surveillance on all fishing vessels over 12 metres across the EU fishing fleet.
While it is good news that the PECH Committee does not support the intrusive proposal, it is still too early to believe that it is dead-and-buried. Too much can still happen and there is still a long way to go before the final control proposal is adopted.
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First, the section on camera surveillance must be re-examined in the European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries, where, as mentioned, Aguilera must try to find a majority behind a new compromise. The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries is expected to consider the matter again in early February. The whole of the European Parliament must then vote on their final position on the overall control proposal. The control proposal is expected to be put to the vote when the European Parliament holds its so-called plenary session in March.
The proposal then enters the final and decisive phase, in which the European Parliament, the European Commission and the fisheries ministers of the Member States will try to reach a final agreement. An agreement that will be the culmination of a process that has been going on for many years and which will shape the future of camera surveillance in the fisheries in the EU.