Commission Regulation (EC) No 70/2001 of 12 January 2001 on the application of Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty to State aid to small and medium-sized enterprises (3) does not apply to activities linked to the production, processing or marketing of fishery and aquaculture products covered by Council Regulation (EC) No 104/2000 of 17 December 1999 on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products (4).

Thirdly, an overall reduction of the financial contribution over a four-year period, from an average of EUR 86 million per year to an average of EUR 72.25 million per year, but with an increase within this allocation of the part dedicated to supporting the country’s fisheries policy: from EUR 11 million per year in 2008-9 to EUR 20 million per year in 2011-2012.

– (DE) Mr President, Mr Seppänen, ladies and gentlemen, on 17 December last year, the Council adopted the Commission proposal to allocate appropriate financial aid to fishermen and vessel owners who had operated under the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco, in order to enable them to undertake conversion of vessels and activities.

In the light of the Commission’s considerable experience in applying those Articles to small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production, processing and marketing of fisheries products, it is appropriate, with a view to ensuring efficient supervision and simplifying administration without weakening Commission monitoring, that the Commission should make use of the powers conferred on it by Regulation (EC) No 994/98 also for small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production, processing and marketing of fisheries products, insofar as Article 89 of the Treaty has been declared applicable to such products.

The Commission has applied Articles 87 and 88 of the Treaty to small and medium-sized enterprises active in the production, processing and marketing of fisheries’ products in numerous decisions and has also stated its policy, most recently in the Guidelines for the examination of State aid to fisheries and aquaculture (3) (the Fisheries Guidelines).

2. In the area defined in paragraph 1, Member States shall assess the levels of fishing effort exerted by vessels equal to or more than 10 metres in length overall, as an annual average of the period 1998 to 2002, for demersal fisheries, excluding those covered by Regulation (EC) No 2347/2002, and fisheries for scallops, edible crab and spider crab, and allocate the level of fishing effort thus assessed for each of those fisheries.