Renewed consultations with EU stakeholders will follow the recent tentative rejection of a FAO draft of technical guidelines on aquaculture certification.
During the October meeting of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) Aquaculture Sub-Committee held at Puerto Varas, Chile, concerns were voiced surrounding the adoption of the draft Technical Guidelines on Aquaculture Certification submitted by the FAO.
Several delegations, in particular Canada, Australia, Norway and USA, indicated their inability to adopt the guidelines in the present form, proposing not to discuss the contents of the guidelines now, only the procedure to be followed in order to adopt them. Other delegations, however (Thailand, Chilli, Uganda, Korea, India, China), were in favour of the adoption.
There was finally a general agreement on a request to FAO to invite members to submit their comments on the present draft guidelines by 31 January 2009, and that these comments will then be consolidated by FAO into a new version of the draft guidelines to be sent to FAO members by 31 March 2009.
It was also recommended that the revised version be discussed at a technical consultation round, to be held as soon as possible in 2009. During its session in March 2009, COFI will be requested to consider delegating to the technical consultation authority to finalise and adopt the guidelines.
At the meeting, the EC presented its comments on the contents on the draft technical guidelines contained in the common position which was earlier endorsed at the Council Fisheries Working Group.
The new consultation round means involvement from the EU Commission’s Advisory Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture (ACFA), as well, specifically its working group II (Aquaculture: fish, shellfish and molluscs).
The Commission announced that comments on the draft technical guidelines on aquaculture certification and/or on the EC common position should be submitted as soon as possible but no later than 12 December.