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Council Regulation (EC) No 1185/2003 of 26 June 2003 on the removal of fins of sharks on board vessels

Type Regulation

Publication 2003-06-26

State In force

Department Council of the European Union

Source EUR-Lex

Reform history JSON API

Article 1

Scope

This Regulation shall apply to the removal of shark fins, retention on board, transhipment and landing of sharks or shark fins:

by vessels in maritime waters under the sovereignty or the jurisdiction of Member States;

by vessels flying the flag or registered in Member States in other maritime waters.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply:

‘shark fins’ means any fins of sharks including caudal fins, but excluding the pectoral fins of rays, which are a constituent part of raywings;

‘shark’ means any fish of the taxon Elasmobranchii;

Article 3

Prohibitions

Article 6

Reports

Where vessels flying the flag of a Member State catch, retain on-board, tranship or land sharks, the flag Member State, in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009 of 20 November 2009 establishing a Community control system for ensuring compliance with the rules of the common fisheries policy (⁶) and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 404/2011 of 8 April 2011 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009 (⁷), shall send to the Commission, annually, by 1 May, a comprehensive report on its implementation of this Regulation during the previous year. The report shall describe the monitoring by the flag Member State of compliance with this Regulation by its vessels in Union and non-Union waters, and the enforcement measures it has taken in cases of non-compliance. In particular, the flag Member State shall provide all of the following information:

— the number of landings of sharks,

— the number, date and place of the inspections that have been carried out,

— the number and nature of cases of non-compliance detected, including a full identification of the vessel(s) involved and the penalty applied for each case of non-compliance, and

— the total landings by species (weight/number) and by port.

Article 7

Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 60th day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Reading this document does not replace reading the official text published in the Official Journal of the European Union. We assume no responsibility for any inaccuracies arising from the conversion of the original to this format.