The European Fisheries Control Agency must contribute to maritime surveillance. How does it make this obligation happen?

The agency only has very limited means and must, with these means, ensure that its main task, controlling fisheries, is done. We don’t have the resources to do much in terms of maritime surveillance. That said, it is obvious that there are savings to be made. We are in contact with the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in Lisbon and with the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union [Frontex, HQ in Warsaw - Ed] to see how to improve the situation. Frontex has an EU budget for immigration surveillance. Sometimes this surveillance is carried out in the same areas where we are active for fisheries control. We are studying how we could optimise the resources to be deployed at sea to develop these policies. For its part, the European Commission has asked member states to put forward projects for it to finance. As a user of national resources, the agency is ready to take part in this. We are in the midst of organising cooperation between member states in the fisheries sector: savings are possible as the cost/benefit analysis shows. Let’s take the North Sea (Southern area) and the Eastern Channel: we work with the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. If we all work together, we may have four to five patrollers. That isn’t necessary. I think that we can do the work with three. Pooling resources makes inspection more efficient and generates more significant synergies. In terms of maritime surveillance, if all the member states work together, we can make significant savings without reducing the level of the controls.

How is cooperation with the other agencies organised?

EU policies are very vertical. There is the Common Fisheries Policy but, in some areas, this policy meets other maritime policies. EMSA has certain tasks that cover surveillance. We have tasks that only cover the fisheries sector. Frontex deals with immigration. EMSA has a lot of information on shipping movements at sea, which is available to all member states. It would be stupid for each member state to work alone, thus only having a partial, national view. If we could organise the data collection system together, the figures would be better at the EU level and we would have a fuller picture of the state of play.

I think that we can gain a lot in efficiency if we put all the information available together. In this context, in December 2009, we signed an agreement between the three agencies – fisheries, maritime safety and Frontex – to see how we can best use and add value to the systems in place. In concrete terms, we created working groups between agencies and have, for example, carried out (at the end of April) a Frontex mission in the Mediterranean, where we control tuna fishing.

Are the agencies’ data systems compatible?

No. At the moment, integration and interoperability are lacking at the EU level. The systems don’t communicate between each other. Everyone uses their own technologies. There is a lot of work to be done to integrate the systems. That doesn’t mean that everyone must have the same system but that the systems must be able to ‘speak’ to each other. The Commission has asked member states to propose projects to identify the problems. For example, we use the VMS (Voyage Management System or satellite ship surveillance) system, which is a recording box linked to GPS and fixed to the ship. The system, which can be controlled remotely, sends messages every hour to land-based control stations, enabling them to locate ships. If the ship turns off the system, the box continues to record the ship’s position, which avoids fishing in banned areas. A second tool is the electronic ship’s log, in which the captain records all the captures, data which are sent every day to the monitoring centres. EMSA uses another system based on radar: each ship has its identification, which enables a systematic check on its position. We need to look at how we can make these different technologies more efficient as part of integrated systems. Another problem to be taken into account is that VMS data are confidential. They can be exchanged between the control services of member states but each body has an obligation to ensure that they remain confidential. Radarsat and EMSA data are accessible to the public via the internet. Finally, the GMES [Global Monitoring for Environment and Security] system will in the end be integrated into the system, as is stipulated in the regulation. That will be an important step towards interoperability. But the most important thing is that, if we work together, we can achieve the same efficiency with fewer resources.