The Union fishing fleet register is a necessary tool for implementing the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy. That register should contain all Union fishing vessels.

Member States should record the information on ownership, on vessel and gear characteristics and on the activity of Union fishing vessels flying their flag and submit to the Commission such information in accordance with Article 24(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013. The Commission should maintain a Union fishing fleet register containing the information received from the Member States.

The Member States are responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in the national fishing fleet register. To this end the Members States should constantly monitor the quality of such information and ensure that it is regularly updated and can be checked at any time by the Commission through specific queries.

In order to monitor the activities of vessels between Member States and to ensure an unequivocal link between the information contained in the Union fishing fleet register and the data from other information systems relating to fishing activities, a unique identification number should be allocated to each Union fishing vessel, which under no circumstances may be reassigned or altered.

To ensure the effective application of this Regulation it is appropriate to introduce new tools and procedures in order to simplify further data management between Member States and the European Commission and to guarantee access to updated data more frequently.

For the management of the capacity of fishing fleets and their activity, the Union fishing fleet register should be made available to Member States in its entirety and to the public in a limited version. This limited version should exclude personal data in order to protect such data but include fishing vessels identifiers for the purposes of strengthening access to and transparency of information for the public.

The new tool for data exchanges developed by the Commission should be used for all electronic data exchanges.

As Article 24(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 provides that Member States send to the Commission the information on ownership and on vessel and gear characteristics of Union fishing vessels flying their flag, those data should also be included in this Regulation.

Regulation (EC) No 26/2004 should be repealed.

Sufficient time should be given to Member States to adapt their national registers to the new data requirements laid down in this Regulation.

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee for Fisheries and Aquaculture,