This Annex shall apply to EU vessels carrying on board or deploying any of the gears referred to in point 1 of Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008 and present in any of the geographical areas referred to in point 2 of that Annex.

This Annex shall not apply to vessels of less than 10 metres' length overall. These vessels shall not be required to carry special fishing permits issued in accordance with Article 7 of Regulation (EC) No 1627/94. Member States concerned shall assess the fishing effort of those vessels by effort groups to which they belong, using appropriate sampling methods. During 2010, the Commission shall seek scientific advice for evaluating the effort deployment of those vessels, with a view to their future inclusion into the effort regime.

The maximum allowable effort referred to in Article 12(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008 and in Article 9(2) of Regulation (EC) No 676/2007 for the 2010 management period, from 1 February 2010 to 31 January 2011, for each of the effort groups of each Member State is set out in Appendix 1.

The maximum levels of annual fishing effort set in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1954/2003 shall not affect the maximum allowable fishing effort set in this Annex.

Member States shall manage the maximum allowable effort in accordance with the conditions laid down in Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 676/2007, Articles 4 and 13 to 17 of Regulation (EC) No 1342/2008 and Articles 26 to 34 of Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009.

Article 28 of Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009 shall apply to vessels falling under the scope of this Annex. The geographical area referred to in that Article shall be understood, for the purpose of cod management, as each of the geographical areas referred to in point 2 and, for the purpose of sole and plaice management, as ICES zone IV.

If a Member State deems so appropriate in order to reinforce the sustainable implementation of this effort regime, it shall not permit fishing with a regulated gear in any of the geographical areas to which this Annex applies by any of its vessels which has no record of such fishing activity, unless it ensures that equivalent capacity, measured in kilowatts, is prevented from fishing in the regulated area.

A Member State may establish management periods for allocating all or parts of the maximum allowable effort to individual vessels or groups of vessels. In such case, the number of days or hours for which a vessel may be present within the area during a management period shall be fixed at the discretion of the Member State concerned. During any such management periods, the Member State may reallocate effort between individual vessels or groups of vessels.

If a Member State authorises vessels to be present within an area by hours, the Member State shall continue measuring the consumption of days in accordance with the conditions referred to in point 4. Upon request by the Commission, the Member State shall demonstrate its precautionary measures taken to avoid an excessive consumption of effort within the area due to a vessel terminating presences in the area before the end of a 24-hour period.

Without prejudice to Articles 33 and 34 of Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009, Member States shall transmit to the Commission on its request the data on fishing effort deployed by their fishing vessels in the previous month and the months before, using the reporting format set out in Appendix 2.

The data shall be sent to the appropriate electronic mailbox address, which the Commission shall communicate to the Member States. When a data transfer to the Fisheries Data Exchange System (or any future data system decided by the Commission) will become operational, the Member State shall transmit the data to the system before the fifteenth of each month, referring to the effort deployed up to the end of the previous month. The Commission shall notify Member States the date at which the system shall be used for transmission at least two months in advance of the first due date. The first fishing effort declaration that will be sent to the system shall include the effort deployed since 1 February 2010. Member States shall transmit to the Commission on its request the data on fishing effort deployed by their fishing vessels during the month of January 2010.