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A EUROPEAN UNION PROJECT FINANCED BY THE PRE-ACCESSION PROGRAMME An institutional twinning programme to support Turkey’s legal and institutional alignment to the EU acquis in terms of fisheries policy Twinning project TR-03-AG-01 The TR-03-AG-01 Twinning Project is financed by the Pre-accession Programme which aims to assist the candidate countries Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Turkey in meeting the criteria for EU membership through bilateral co-operation projects focusing on the transposition, implementation and enforcement of European legislation. Twinning Twinning as the principal tool of pre-accession assistance for Institution Building was launched in May 1998. Twinning aims to help the candidate countries in their development of modern and efficient administrations, with the structures human resources and management skills needed to implement the “community acquis” to the same standards as Member States. Twinning provides the framework for administrations and semi-public organizations in the new member states or candidate countries to work with their counterparts in Member States. They jointly develop and implement a project that targets the transposition, enforcement and implementation of a specific part of the “community acquis”. The parties agree in advance on a detailed work programme to meet an objective concerning priority areas of the acquis. This twinning project has three Resident Twinning Advisers (RTAs) seconded from three Member State administrations (The Netherlands, Germany and Sweden) to work full time for the duration of the project in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural affairs to implement the project. A senior Project Leader from the leading member state, the Netherlands is responsible for the overall coordination of the project. The avisers are supplemented by missions of other specialists, training events, awareness raising visits, etc to accompany the reform process towards the targeted result. Objectives of the Fisheries Project The Fisheries Twinning Programme is destined to support Turkey’s legal and institutional alignment to the EU acquis in terms of fisheries policy. The overall objective of this project is to enhance the sustainable contribution of the fisheries sector to the national economy and prepare the sector for Turkey’s accession to the European Union. In the framework of the project the following results will be achieved:
The purpose of the project is to implement the relevant legal, institutional and structural policy reforms identified in the 3-year horizon Fisheries Sector EU Alignment Strategy developed by the Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. (MARA) Components of the Project Component 1 – Institutional Strengthening, Legislation and Structural Policy Within this component the relevant legislative changes will be made in order to comply with the existing EU legislation as well as other legislation which will enter into force during the implementation of the project. A legal and institutional approximation strategy will be implemented and the new framework (or amendment to the current) fishery law will be prepared and sent to the parliament for adoption. Advice for a reconstruction of MARA will be provided to improve the administration and management of the sector with a view to the requirement of the fisheries acquis. A Fisheries Policy and Planning Unit will be established and a sector study, a related strategy and a plan will be prepared as well as a structural policy. Organizational linkages between the fisheries administration and all stakeholders will be established. For aquaculture and inland fisheries, guidance will be given for the strengthening of these fields. Major inputs will also be provided by a TA (Technical Assistance) Team. Component 2 – Conservation, Control and Resource Management According to the EU requirements a Fisheries Monitoring Centre (FMC) has to be installed to ensure the administrative control of Turkish fisheries in terms of its catches, its fleet and the activities of the fleet at sea. In order to achieve this important result, the first activity to be undertaken is the adaptation of the Turkish Fishing Vessel Register, which must be compliant, both with specific needs of the Turkish administration and the EU regulations. The second activity tackles the difficult and at the same time highly important issue of catch/quota control and stock management. This activity also embraces the catch statistics-related activities. The third activity is aimed at the installation of the Satellite Vessel Monitoring System (VMS), which is due to be installed under the auspices of the project. The last activity aims to provide training for fisheries inspectors with a special focus on practical fisheries controls in port and at sea, with the use of new tools and facilities provided by the project. All activities are aimed at the staff of the Turkish fishery administration, i.e. the Department of Fishery in the MARA and the Coast Guard Command. The Fishery Research Institutes in Turkey will also contribute to the project as the scientific stakeholders of the fisheries administration in Turkey. Component – 3 Common Organization of the Market The overall aim is the adoption and implementation of the acquis concerning the common organisation of markets in fishery and aquaculture products. The twinning project is planned to work very closely with a technical assistance (TA) team in the implementation of the work programme which covers all areas of the common market organisation i.e. marketing standards for freshness and quality of landed fishery products, consumer information concerning fishing areas and name of species and the possible establishment of producer organisations incl. a price support system based on intervention and withdrawal of fish. The twinning project will also support the TA-team, as indicated above, in setting up of a system for the collection of sales data and the creation of model wholesales markets. In addition, issues concerning sanitary and veterinary regulations concerning fishery products will be dealt with. In order to achieve the benchmarks, a number of seminars and workshops will be held. Special attention will be given to the support to the TA-team on preparing training material and implementing training courses for trainers, inspectors and stakeholders at central as well as at regional level. Component – 4 Information System In order to handle all the necessary information about fisheries, an integrated IT system will be established as a Fishery Information Centre(FIC) in Ankara, consisting of the Fisheries Monitoring Centre (FMC) and the Vessel Monitoring Centre (VMC). Designed for tracking Turkish vessels at sea while they are fishing, the Vessel Monitoring Centre (VMC), which will be run by the Turkish Coast Guard, will assist the FIC in its activities. Fishing Vessel Register - data, landing reports, such about freshness and quality or registering and reporting fish first sales as well as all quota related activities will be handledby the FMC. Afterwards the FMC will report to the Fishery Information Data Exchange System (FIDES) of the European Union (EU) or vice versa. So the FMC will provide a sophisticated IT system consisting of three main components connected to each other to allow crosschecking of data related to the same activity from different sources. It will connect the regional fishing ports to the Central Unit in the MARA, enabling a quick and effective exchange of data and also covering the needs of reporting to the EU and other international institutions. Such a compact, integrated solution will be the most modern for Europe. The costs of a main server and ancillary IT support equipment and the system development, purchase and installation shall be covered predominantly by Pre-accession Programme funds. Furthermore certain equipments will be provided to 30 port offices and a range of minor fisheries. According to EU requirements a Fisheries Monitoring Centre has to be established to ensure administrative control of Turkish fishery in terms of catches, fleet and fleet activity at sea. Period, Place and Funding of the Project The Project has started in January 2005 and is scheduled to end by November 2006. It is financed by the European Union under the Pre-accession Programme as a twinning project with a budget of € 2,410,726.64. The centre of activities is the Directorate General of Protection and Control of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Akay Caddesi, Ankara. Twinning Partners Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Directorate General of Protection and Control from the Turkish part and a consortium of: - The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality from the Netherlands part,
Dick Bruinsma, MS Project Leader, International Team Manager Broer van der Meer , Netherlands RTA for Component – 1, Resident Project Coordinator Ulrich Grosch, German RTA for Component – 2&4 Joacim Johannesson, Swedish RTA for Component – 3 Bruno Hoffstadt, Junior MS Project Leader Tore Gustavsson, Junior MS Project Leader Vahdettin Kürüm , Counterpart Project Leader Haydar Fersoy, RTA Counterpart for Component – 1 Hasan Kýlýç, RTA Counterpart for Component – 2&4 Hüseyin Dede, RTA Counterpart for Component – 3 Bilgen Kocabýyýk, RTA Assistant for Component – 1 Yasemin Cengiz, RTA Assistant for Component – 2&4 Zeynep Benli, RTA Assistant for Component – 3 |
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