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, amending Regulations (EC) No 847/96, (EC) No 2371/2002, (EC) No 811/2004, (EC) No 768/2005, (EC) No 2115/2005, (EC) No 2166/2005, (EC) No 388/2006, (EC) No 509/2007, (EC) No 676/2007, (EC) No 1098/2007, (EC) No 1300/2008, (EC) No 1342/2008 and repealing Regulations (EEC) No 2847/93, (EC) No 1627/94 and (EC) No 1966/2006

‘fishing activity’ means searching for fish, shooting, setting, towing, hauling of a fishing gear, taking catch on board, transhipping, retaining on board, processing on board, transferring, caging, fattening and landing of fish and fisheries products;

‘rules of the common fisheries policy’ means legally binding Union acts and applicable international obligations of the Union relating to the conservation, management and exploitation of marine biological resources, to aquaculture, and to processing, transport and marketing of fishery and aquaculture products;

‘control’ means monitoring and surveillance;

‘inspection’ means any check which is carried out by officials regarding compliance with the rules of the common fisheries policy and which is noted in an inspection report;

‘surveillance’ means the observation of fishing activities on the basis of sightings by inspection vessels, official aircraft, official remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), vehicles or other means, including technical detection and identification methods;

‘official’ means any person authorised by a competent authority of a Member State, the Commission or the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA), established under Regulation (EU) 2019/473 of the European Parliament and of the Council (³), to carry out control or inspections;

‘Union inspector’ means an official of a Member State, of the Commission or of EFCA, whose name is contained in the list established in accordance with Article 79;

‘control observer’ means a person authorised by a national authority to observe the implementation of the rules of the common fisheries policy;

‘fishing licence’ means an official document conferring on its holder the right, as determined by national rules, to use a certain fishing capacity for the commercial exploitation of marine biological resources;

‘fishing authorisation’ means an authorisation issued in respect of a Union fishing vessel, where relevant in addition to its fishing licence, entitling it to carry out specific fishing activities during a specified period, in a given area or for a given fishery under specific conditions;

‘automatic identification system’ means an autonomous and continuous vessel identification and monitoring system which provides means for ships to electronically exchange with other nearby ships and authorities ashore ship data including identification, position, course and speed;

‘vessel position data’ means data on the fishing vessel identification, geographical position, date, time, course and speed transmitted by tracking devices on board fishing vessels to the fisheries monitoring centre of the flag Member State;

‘vessel detection system’ means a satellite based remote sensing technology which can identify vessels and detect their positions at sea;

‘fishing restricted area’ means a specific geographically defined marine area within one or more sea basins where all or certain fishing activities are temporarily or permanently restricted or prohibited in order to improve the conservation of marine biological resources or the protection of marine ecosystems under the rules of the common fisheries policy;

‘fisheries monitoring centre’ means an operational centre established by a flag Member State and equipped with computer hardware and software enabling automatic data reception, processing, analysis, control, monitoring and electronic data transmission;

‘transhipment’ means the unloading of all or any fisheries or aquaculture products on board a vessel to another vessel;

‘risk’ means the likelihood of an event that may occur and would constitute a violation of the rules of the common fisheries policy;

‘risk management’ means the systematic identification of risks and the implementation of all measures necessary for limiting the occurrence of these risks. This includes activities such as collecting data and information, analysing and assessing risks, preparing and taking action, and regular monitoring and review of the process and its outcomes, based on international,  Union and national sources and strategies;

‘operator’ means the natural or legal person who operates or holds any undertaking carrying out any of the activities related to any stage of production, processing, marketing, distribution and retail chains of fisheries and aquaculture products;

‘lot’ means a batch of units of fishery or aquaculture products;

‘processing’ means the process by which the presentation was prepared. It includes cutting, filleting, packing, canning, freezing, smoking, salting, cooking, pickling, drying or preparing fish for market in any other manner;

‘landing’ means the first unloading of any quantity of fishery products from on board a fishing vessel to land;

‘multiannual plan’ means a plan as referred to in Articles 9 and 10 of Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013, or another Union measure adopted on the basis of Article 43(2) TFEU providing for specific management or recovery of particular fish stocks and covering a period of more than one year;

‘coastal State’ means the State in the waters under the sovereignty or jurisdiction or in the ports of which an activity takes place;

‘enforcement’ means any actions taken to ensure compliance with the rules of the common fisheries policy;

‘certified engine power’ means the maximum continuous engine power which can be obtained at the output flange of an engine according to the certificate issued by the Member State’s authorities or classification societies or other operators assigned by them;

‘recreational fisheries’ means non-commercial fishing activities exploiting marine biological resources for recreation, tourism or sport;

‘relocation’ means fishing operations where the catch or part thereof is transferred or moved from shared fishing gear to a vessel or from a fishing vessel’s hold or its fishing gear to a keep net, container or cage outside the vessel in which the live catch is kept until landing;

‘relevant geographical area’ means a sea area that is considered as a unit for the purposes of geographical classification in fisheries expressed by reference to a FAO sub-area, division or sub-division, or where applicable an ICES statistical rectangle, fishing effort zone, economic zone or area bounded by geographical coordinates;

‘fishing vessel’ means a catching vessel or any other vessel used for commercial exploitation of marine biological resources, including support vessels, fish processing vessels, vessels engaged in transhipment, towing vessels, auxiliary vessels and carrier vessels used for the transportation of fishery products, but excluding container vessels and vessels used exclusively for aquaculture;

‘fishing opportunity’ means a quantified legal entitlement to fish, expressed in terms of catches and/or fishing effort;

‘catching vessel’ means a vessel equipped or used for the capture of marine biological resources for commercial purposes;

‘slipping’ means the practice of intentionally releasing fish from fishing gear before that gear is fully brought on board a catching vessel;

‘fishing trip’ means any voyage of a catching vessel which starts at the moment when the vessel leaves a port and ends on arrival in port;

‘unique fishing trip identification number’ means the specific number generated by the electronic fishing logbook for each fishing trip;

‘sensitive species’ means a sensitive species as defined in Article 6, point (8), of Regulation (EU) 2019/1241 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁵);

‘fishing without a vessel’ means an activity for the commercial exploitation of marine biological resources where those resources are caught or harvested without the use of a catching vessel, such as gathering of shellfish, underwater fishing, ice fishing and fishing from the shore, including fishing on foot;

‘unique fishing day identification number’ means the specific number generated for any continuous period of 24 hours or part thereof during which fishing without a vessel takes place.