Council Regulation (EC) No 423/2004 of 26 February 2004 on establishing measures for the recovery of cod stocks2 intends to ensure the safe recovery of the cod stocks in the Kattegat, the North Sea including the Skagerrak and the eastern Channel, to the west of Scotland and the Irish Sea, to the precautionary stock sizes advised by scientists within a time-frame of five to ten years.

Recent scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has indicated that the reductions in cod catches arising from the collective effect of total allowable catches (TACs), technical measures and complementary effort management measures, including monitoring and control to prevent the catching and landing of cod caught by illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, have been far from sufficient to reduce fishing mortalities to levels required to allow the cod stocks to rebuild and none of the four cod stocks covered by Regulation (EC) No 423/2004 show clear signs of recovery, although the stocks in the North Sea are showing some signs of improvement.

It appears necessary to reinforce the regime and to introduce a long-term plan in order to achieve sustainable exploitation of cod stocks on the basis of maximum sustainable yield.

According to recent scientific submissions, in particular on long-term trends of marine ecosystems, desirable long-term levels of biomass cannot be determined with accuracy. As a consequence, the objective of the long-term plan should be changed from a biomass-based target to a fishing mortality-based target, which should also be applied to permitted levels of fishing effort.

The North Sea cod stock is shared with Norway and is jointly managed. The measures provided for in this Regulation should take due account of consultations with Norway pursuant to the Agreement on fisheries between the European Economic Community and the Kingdom of Norway3.

In the event that the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) is not able to advise on a TAC due to lack of sufficiently accurate and representative information, provisions should be established to ensure that a TAC can be set in a consistent manner even under poor data conditions.

In order to ensure the attainment of fishing mortality targets, and to contribute to minimising discards, fishing opportunities in terms of fishing effort need also to be fixed at levels which are consistent with the multiannual strategy. Such fishing opportunities should, as far as possible, be defined by types of fishing gear on the basis of current fishing practices. It is appropriate to provide for a periodical review of the effectiveness of the management system and to ensure, in particular, that when cod stocks reach levels that allow for exploitation rendering maximum sustainable yield, the system of regulating fishing effort is reviewed.

New mechanisms should be introduced to encourage fishermen to engage in cod-avoidance programmes. Any such cod-avoidance or discard reduction programmes are more likely to succeed if they are developed in cooperation with the fishing industry. Accordingly, such programmes developed with Member States should be considered an effective means of promoting sustainability and their development should be encouraged. Moreover, Member States should exercise their power to allocate access to fishing for cod stocks so as to encourage their fishermen to fish in ways that result in more selective fishing and are less harmful to the environment.

The establishment and allocation of catch limits, the fixing of the minimum and precautionary levels of stocks and of the level of fishing mortality rates, as well as the maximum allowable fishing effort for each effort group by Member State and the exclusion of certain groups of vessels from the effort regime laid down in this Regulation are measures of prime importance in the common fisheries policy (CFP). It is appropriate that the Council should reserve for itself the right to exercise implementing powers directly in relation to these specific matters.

The measures necessary for the implementation of certain provisions of this Regulation, in particular, those related to the adaptations of fishing effort limits within the maximum allowable fishing effort established by the Council should be adopted in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 on laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission4.

Control measures in addition to those laid down in Council Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 of 12 October 1993 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy5 should be introduced to ensure compliance with the measures laid down in this Regulation.

Rules should be established to qualify the long-term plan introduced by this Regulation taking into account the situation of the relevant stocks as a recovery plan within the meaning of Article 5 of Council Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002 of 20 December 2002 on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources under the common fisheries policy6, and for the purposes of Article 21(a)(i) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006 of 27 July 2006 on the European Fisheries Fund7 or, in the alternative, as a management plan within the meaning of Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 2371/2002, and for the purposes of Article 1(a)(iv) of Regulation (EC) No 1198/2006.

Regulation (EC) No 423/2004 should be repealed and replaced by this Regulation,