To construct vessel registers have become one of Assist AB's largest specialities. We have participated in several projects for construction of vessel registers in several countries both within and outside of EU.

Background

Each EU country has its own fishing vessel register. The contents of these registers is reported to EU, who collects all vessel registers from all EU countries and puts them together in a register over the fishing fleet of EU.

Through the years quite a number of changes have been made to the regulations that regulates the vessel registers of EU. The latest regulation 26/2004 has been valid since 1 September 2004 and regulates the information that has to be sent to EU quarterly. Even here new changes are going to take place.

Reflections

Now when the national database are sent to EU four times per year, the result will be a better correspondence between the registers in the member states and the central EU register. Earlier  when every change had to be reported directly after its occurrence even typing errors where sent, and a lot of corrections had to be done.

There are still some strange demands in the system. The time when a vessel becomes inactive, tonnage on open vessels, contradictive demands in the regulation regarding gears etc.

On several areas the regulation have been simplified thus making it easier to construct a system for reporting and registration.

Experience in this area

We have for example:

• Participated in the development of and developed several generations of vessel registers in Sweden. The latest for regulation 26/2004.

• Structured a vessel register for the earlier regulation 2090/98. We have also installed and performed training in this program in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Cyprus.

• Connected the vessel register in Latvia to their new fishery system.

During 2005-2007 we are working with

• The structuring of a new vessel register for regulation  26/2004 in Turkey.

• The structure and the implementation of a new vessel register in Indonesia.