Union supplies of certain fishery products currently depend on imports from third countries. In the last 18 years, the Union has become more dependent on imports to meet its consumption of fishery products. In order not to jeopardise the Union production of fishery products and to ensure an adequate supply to the Union processing industry, import duties should be reduced or suspended for a number of fishery products within tariff quotas of an appropriate volume. To guarantee a level playing field for the Union producers, the sensitivity of individual fishery products on the Union market should also be taken into consideration.

Council Regulation (EU) No 1220/20121 opened and provided for the management of autonomous Union tariff quotas for certain fishery products for the period 2013-2015. Given that the period of application of that Regulation expires on 31 December 2015, it is important that the relevant rules contained therein be reflected in the period 2016-2018.

Equal and uninterrupted access to the tariff quotas provided for in this Regulation should be ensured for all Union importers, and the rates laid down for the tariff quotas should be applied without interruption to all imports of the fishery products concerned into all Member States until the tariff quotas have been used up.

Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2454/932 provides for a system of tariff-quota management which follows the chronological order of the dates of acceptance of the declarations for release for free circulation. The tariff quotas opened by this Regulation should be managed by the Commission and the Member States in accordance with that system.

The application of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the European Union and Canada will alter the available preferential access to the Union market for shrimps and prawns of the species Pandalus borealis covered by a tariff quota provided for in this Regulation. That quota should therefore be adapted to ensure the same level of preferential supply to the Union market as before the entry into force or provisional application of that Agreement.

The application of the additional protocol to the agreement between the European Economic Community and the Kingdom of Norway that was negotiated in parallel to the EEA Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 will alter the available preferential access to the Union market for herrings covered by two tariff quotas provided for in this Regulation. Those quotas should therefore be adapted to ensure the same level of preferential supply to the Union market as before the entry into force or provisional application of that additional protocol.

It is important to provide the fishery processing industry with security of supply of raw fishery materials to permit continued growth and investment, and, most importantly, to enable it to adapt to the replacement of suspensions by quotas without any disruption of supply. It is therefore appropriate to provide, in respect of certain fishery products to which suspensions have applied, for a system which triggers an automatic increase of the applicable tariff quotas under certain conditions.

To ensure the efficiency of a common management of the tariff quotas, Member States should be permitted to draw from the tariff quota amount the necessary quantities corresponding to their actual imports. Since that method of management requires close cooperation between the Member States and the Commission, the Commission should be able to monitor the rate at which the tariff quotas are used up and should inform the Member States accordingly,