Fishery also joins the plan of digital transformation. Specifically, the call for action for the “Purchase and Installation of Electronic Data Transfer Devices (EDD-VMS) ERS-AIS” was announced by the Information Society S.A. I.S. SA, which has been designated as the Intermediate Management Entity (IMA) and is responsible for the implementation of part of the Operational Programme (OP) Fisheries and Maritime Affairs 2014-2020 has undertaken to “run” this action, which involves the modernisation of fishermen and fishing vessels with generous subsidies.
The total Public Expenditure to be made available through this Action amounts to at least three million euros (€3.000.000). The programme is co-financed by the European Union’s European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and by National Participation.
The action of the operational programme includes the “Development, purchase and installation of the necessary components, including hardware and software, to ensure the transmission of data from the operators involved in fishing and marketing of fisheries products to both national and Union authorities, including the necessary components of electronic recording and reporting systems (ERS), VMS and automatic identification systems (AIS)”.
In order to ensure effective control of fishing activities, means are used to ensure that the “pathway” of catches from fishing to consumption is fully covered. The aim of the Action is to provide these tools so that a high level of controls can be carried out and compliance with CFP rules can be ensured.
This Action concerns the non-explicit obligation for professional fishermen and owners of fishing vessels to carry on board their vessels the electronic devices for satellite tracking and transmission of VMS-ERS and AIS data, as appropriate. This obligation arises from the Community institutional framework.
The beneficiaries of the financial support will be:

• Natural or legal persons, owners (as defined in Reg. 508/2014) of fishing vessels engaged in professional fishing on board an active fishing vessel (valid professional fishing licence). The vessels for which the owners will be supported should be registered in the Greek Registers/Lamboldia and registered in the National Fishing Register (NFR), as well as meet all the requirements of the Community and National legislation governing commercial fishing vessels, taking into account any time commitments from previous funding of the same operations at the time of application.
• Any person who, on a voluntary or mandatory basis under applicable legislation, equips a fishing vessel with a valid licence with monitoring, recording and reporting information systems in order to meet the requirements for special fishing permits, such as the fishing of holothurians and sympatric shrimps.

Perpetual beneficiaries are also the old obligated users of the devices by replacing the old ones, taking into account any time commitments resulting from previous funding.

• Fishermen with commercial fishing vessels of 12 metres or more in length.
• Fishermen with a licence to fish in international waters.
• Fishermen with a bluefin tuna licence (BFT), and/or a swordfish licence (SWO) and/or a longfin tuna licence (ALB).
• Fishermen with a purse seine or seining licence (SB) of less than 12 metres in length.

The financial aid will be granted to the beneficiary in the form of a grant and its amount will be calculated on the basis of eligible costs. This Action will be applied throughout the Greek territory, with aid intensities varying accordingly:

• the size of the businessvvv
• the location of the beneficiaries of the operations and whether they are implemented on the “remote Greek islands”
• if the beneficiaries and the beneficiary fishing vessels are related to small-scale coastal fishing.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Beneficiaries will be subsidised for the purchase and installation of each device, according to the flat rates presented in the following table, which have been derived as a product of market research and historical data (previous supply of the same devices).  

  In order to take care of the category of fishing vessels which are active or wish to become active in the catching sea cucumbers and in order to meet the requirements for the issue of a special fishing permit for the above mentioned catch, until Sunday 1 November, applications for funding will be accepted exclusively for this category. From Monday 2 November applications will be accepted from all categories of potential beneficiaries.