Introductory text

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 31 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,

Whereas:

Union supplies of certain fishery products currently depend on imports from third countries. In the last 21 years, the Union has become more dependent on imports to meet its consumption of fishery products. In order not to jeopardise the Union production of fishery products and to ensure an adequate supply to the Union processing industry, import duties should be reduced or suspended for a number of fishery products within tariff quotas of an appropriate volume. To guarantee a level playing field for the Union producers, the sensitivity of individual fishery products on the Union market should be taken into consideration.

Council Regulation (EU) 2015/2265^f1, which was amended by Council Regulation (EU) 2016/1184^f2, opened and provided for the management of autonomous Union tariff quotas for certain fishery products for the period 2016–2018. Given that the period of application of Regulation (EU) 2015/2265 expires on 31 December 2018, a new Regulation providing for tariff quotas should be adopted for the period 2019–2020.

Equal and uninterrupted access to the tariff quotas provided for in this Regulation should be ensured for all Union importers, and the rates laid down for the tariff quotas should be applied without interruption to all imports of the fishery products concerned into all Member States until the tariff quotas have been used up.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/2447^f3 provides for a system of tariff-quota management which follows the chronological order of the dates of acceptance of the customs declarations for release for free circulation. The tariff quotas opened by this Regulation should be managed by the Commission and the Member States in accordance with that system.

It is important to ensure transparency, predictability and legal certainty for all stakeholders. Since the tariff quotas are intended to ensure adequate supply to the Union processing industry, minimum treatment or operation should be required for quota entitlement.

To ensure the efficiency of a common management of the tariff quotas, Member States should be permitted to draw from the tariff quota amount the necessary quantities corresponding to their actual imports. Since that method of management requires close cooperation between the Member States and the Commission, the Commission should be able to monitor the rate at which the tariff quotas are used up and should inform the Member States accordingly,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: