Advice and Recommendations - The Pelagic Advisory Council

The Pelagic AC provides credible, scientific, and consensus-based advice to inform pelagic fisheries policy, both upon the request of the European Commission and Member States, and on its own initiative. All advice and recommendations are developed and approved by the members of the Pelagic AC.

Our advice — and responses to it — may be accessed below.

Name	Summary	Year	Downloads
Joint-AC letter on contributions from Advisory Councils in Commission public consultations	In a joint-letter from 10 ACs regarding the process of targeting ACs for public consultations, as well as on the consideration of AC responses by the Commission services, the ACs ask the Commission to: • Treat contributions from ACs to public consultations with added weight compared to responses from individuals/individual organisations; • Document AC advice uptake at the end of the consultation process; • Take working processes of ACs into account in a systematic fashion, i.e. by flagging upcoming consultations as early as possible, by providing translated documents in relevant working languages and by extending timelines for feedback submissions from ACs as appropriate. • In addition to the questionnaire consultations, engage in active dialogue with ACs through bilateral meetings on relevant policy consultations, when launching relevant EU consultation questionnaires. In its response, the Commission confirmed that flexibility in the response format would be given to the ACs, and also confirmed that AC responses to consultations adopted by consensus are treated with added weight. The Commission is aware of the need for advance notice of consultations, and dedicates effort to make this possible. As for direct dialogue, the Commission does its utmost to attend relevant AC meetings but asks ACs to prioritize and send meeting invites with enough notice, noting the strain on the Commission resources.	2022	Weight of ACs advice consultations Commission response

Name

Summary

Year

Joint-AC letter on contributions from Advisory Councils in Commission public consultations

In a joint-letter from 10 ACs regarding the process of targeting ACs for public consultations, as well as on the consideration of AC responses by the Commission services, the ACs ask the Commission to:

• Treat contributions from ACs to public consultations with added weight compared to responses from individuals/individual organisations;
• Document AC advice uptake at the end of the consultation process;
• Take working processes of ACs into account in a systematic fashion, i.e. by flagging upcoming consultations as early as possible, by providing translated documents in relevant working languages and by extending timelines for feedback submissions from ACs as appropriate.
• In addition to the questionnaire consultations, engage in active dialogue with ACs through bilateral meetings on relevant policy consultations,
when launching relevant EU consultation questionnaires.

In its response, the Commission confirmed that flexibility in the response format would be given to the ACs, and also confirmed that AC responses to consultations adopted by consensus are treated with added weight. The Commission is aware of the need for advance notice of consultations, and dedicates effort to make this possible. As for direct dialogue, the Commission does its utmost to attend relevant AC meetings but asks ACs to prioritize and send meeting invites with enough notice, noting the strain on the Commission resources.

2022

Weight of ACs advice consultations Commission response