Report on the implementation of Regulation (EC) No 762/2008 on the submission by Member States of statistics on aquaculture

The Commission (Eurostat) collects statistics on aquaculture under Regulation (EC) No 762/2008. Article 11 of the Regulation states that, every three years, the Commission must provide the European Parliament and the Council with a report on the quality and relevance of the statistics reported by the Member States. The report must also analyse the cost-effectiveness of the data collection system and point out any best practices that could lessen the workload for Member States and lead to more useful, higher-quality data.

This report is based primarily on the aquaculture quality reports submitted by the Member States for the reference year 2015. Most Member States filled out their 2015 quality reports in time to be considered for this evaluation report. However, Bulgaria, Italy and Poland did not, so information available for these countries was taken from previous quality reports.

The Commission also analysed the 2013-2015 aquaculture data. The European Statistical System (ESS) provided information on the total costs of collecting the data. As a result, this report assesses the timeliness, completeness, consistency, accessibility and confidentiality of the data overall; it also looks at the burden and cost-effectiveness of the data collection process.