Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending certain Regulations in the field of fisheries and animal health by reason of the change of status of Mayotte with regard to the Union

By Decision 2012/419/EU, the European Council amended the status of Mayotte with regard to the Union with effect from 1 January 2014. Therefore, from that date Mayotte will cease to be an overseas territory to become an outermost region within the meaning of Articles 349 and 355(1) TFEU. Union law will apply to Mayotte from 1 January 2014.

This proposal takes account of requests made by the French authorities, to have the Union acquis amended through specific measures applicable to Mayotte in different areas, such as fisheries and animal health.

The examination of the situation regarding Mayotte has revealed that it is necessary to protect the sensitive biological situation of its waters and therefore to include the waters around Mayotte within the scope of application of Regulation (EC) No 850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms. In certain respects, France needs additional time to comply with the Union acquis with regard to Mayotte. This goes in particular to the registering and control obligations in the area of fisheries, to the extent it concerns certain vessels dispersed around the island and not associated to a specific landing site.

In the area of animal health, it appears justified to grant additional time to comply with Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 laying down health rules as regards animal by-products and derived products not intended for human consumption and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1774/2002, since Mayotte has currently no industrial capacity for the processing of animal by-products.

In the interest of simplicity and speediness, it has been considered expedient not to resort to individual proposals for each of the acts concerned but, where legally possible, to bundle the amendments to several acts in a single proposal. The amendments proposed in the present document all relate to Regulations and fall under the ordinary legislative procedure (Articles 289(1) and 294 TFEU).

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)417: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:417:FIN

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