Division 6

The maximum number of days in any calendar month for which a vessel may be present within the area and absent from port having carried on board any one of the fishing gears referred to in point 4 is shown in Table I.

A day spent absent from port and present within the area defined in point 2 of this Annex shall also count against the total number of days allowable for the area defined in point 2 of Annex IVc for a vessel operating with the same gear categories.

Where a vessel crosses between two areas on a fishing trip the day shall be counted against the area in which the largest proportion of time was spent during that day.

However the maximum number of days in any calendar month for which a vessel may be present within any of the following sub-areas and absent from port having carried on board the fishing gear referred to in point 4(a) shall be:

1. (i)

   West of Scotland: 8;

2. (ii)

   Irish Sea: 10.

A Member State may aggregate the days present within the area and absent from port in Table I within management periods of up to eleven calendar months.

An additional number of days on which a vessel may be present within the area and absent from port when carrying on board any of the gears referred to in point 4 may be allocated to Member States by the Commission on the basis of permanent cessations of fishing activities that have taken place since1 January 2002 in accordance with Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2792/1999 of 17 December 1999 laying down the detailed rules and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector^f1. The additional number of days allocated to vessels in a given gear category will be directly proportional to the fishing effort expended in 2001 measured in kilowatt days of the withdrawn vessels using the gear in question compared to the comparable level of effort expended by all vessels using that gear during 2001. Any part of a day resulting from this calculation shall be rounded to the nearest whole day.

Member States wishing to benefit from such allocations shall submit a request to the Commission with reports containing the details of the permanent cessations of fishing activities in question.

On the basis of such a request the Commission may amend the number of days defined in point (a) for that Member State in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 30 of Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002.

The additional number of days allocated by the Commission to a Member State in 2004 in accordance with point 6(c) of Annex V of Regulation (EC) No 2287/2003 remain allocated in 2005.

Derogations from the number of days present within the area and absent from port shown in Table I may be allocated to vessels by Member States under the conditions shown in Table II.

Member States wishing to apply that higher allocation of days shall notify the Commission with details of the vessels that will benefit and with details of their track records at least two weeks before the higher allocation of days are to be granted.

If that higher allocation of days is given to a vessel, as a result of its low percentage track record of catch of certain species, that vessel shall not at any time retain more than the percentage of those species on board as shown in Table II nor shall they tranship any fish at sea X1to another vessel. When either of these conditions are not met by a vessel, that vessel shall with immediate effect no longer be entitled to the additional days.

One additional day on which a vessel may be present within the area and absent from port when carrying on board fishing gears referred to in point 4(a) of mesh size greater than 120 mm may be allocated to a Member State by the Commission, on the basis of a request from that Member State, on the condition that the Member State concerned has developed a system of automatic suspensions of fishing licences in respect of infringements. During a management period when a vessel is making use of this provision, that vessel may not at any time carry on board any fishing gear of mesh size less than or equal to 120 mm.

In recognition of the area closure in the Irish Sea for the protection of spawning fish and the assumed reduction in fishing mortality on cod, an additional one day will be granted for vessels in groupings of fishing gears 4(a) and 4(b) which spend more than half their allocated days in a given management period fishing in the Irish Sea.