European Fisheries Control Agency

The European Fisheries Control Agency is the agency of the European Union that co-ordinates the national operational activities in the area of fisheries, and assists the member states in their application of the Common Fisheries Policy . The agency is based in Vigo, Spain.HistoryThe Community Fisheries Control Agency was established pursuant to Council Regulation No 768/2005 of 26 April 2005 which entered into force on 10 June 2005. The Administrative Board was constituted at its first meeting held on 1 February 2006. Effective 1 January 2012, the agency was renamed as the European Fisheries Control Agency.Mission and objectivesThe agency’s mission is to promote the highest common standards for control, inspection and surveillance under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). EFCA brokers operational cooperation between EU countries, and assists them and the Commission. It organises and coordinates cooperation between national control and inspection activities and trains national inspectors and trainers, to ensure that CFP rules are respected and applied effectively and consistently.According to its founding regulation, the EFCA objective is ‘to organize operational coordination of fisheries control and inspection activities by the Member States and to assist them to cooperate so as to comply with the rules of the CFP in order to ensure its effective and uniform application’.