1. The Twenty-second Session of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) (Rome, October 1997) adopted several amendments to the Agreement and Rules of Procedures of GFCM. The amendments allowed inter alia the membership of regional economic integration organizations, and the setting up of an autonomous budget, this latter implying new obligations for the members of the Commission. The amendments involving these new obligations shall enter into force after acceptance by two-thirds of the members and for each of them after their own acceptance (Article X.2 of the Agreement).

2. Article VIII bis of the Agreement, as amended, states that each member of GFCM undertakes to contribute annually its share of the autonomous budget in accordance with a scale of contributions to be adopted by the Commission, and that the amount of each member’s contribution shall be determined in accordance with a scheme to be adopted by the Commission.

3. At its Twenty-third Session in July 1998, GFCM discussed the scale of contributions for an autonomous budget on the basis of a document prepared by the GFCM Secretariat¹. The Commission requested the Secretariat to prepare a new proposal to be discussed during a special session of the Commission².

4. Since the Twenty-third Session, the Secretary of GFCM has consulted GFCM members on this issue. Based on these consultations the GFCM Secretariat proposes that the scale of contributions to the GFCM autonomous budget be as identified in Annex 1 to this document.

5. It is furthermore assumed that:

• the autonomous budget is adopted at each regular session of the Commission on the basis of the annual work programme;

• all current members accept the amendments to the GFCM Agreement relating to the autonomous budget, and the amended Agreement enters into force for them.

6. Table 1 shows how an autonomous budget (of US$ 750 000 in this case) would be allocated among GFCM members applying the proposed scale of contributions.

The Commission is invited to review and adopt the proposed scale of contributions.

Table 1: Scale of contribution to hypothetical GFCM autonomous budget of US$ 750,000 for 2000

Table 2: GFCM Tonnage in Equivalent US dollars for contributions for 2000
(based on capture fish and marine aquaculture production in the Mediterranean and Black Sea - average 1995/97 ; and application of a conversion rate of 1 for small pelagic species and 4 for other species)

Scheme for Calculation of Contributions to the Autonomous Budget of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean

1. An amount equal to ten percent (10 %) of the Autonomous Budget shall be divided equally among all Members.

2. An amount equal to thirty percent (30 %) of the Autonomous Budget shall be divided among Members so that each GFCM member contributes a portion of said thirty percent that is proportional to that same member’s share of the combined contribution of all GFCM members to FAO’s regular budget.

3. An amount equal to sixty percent (60 %) of the Autonomous Budget is divided among Members so that each member pays a share of said sixty percent that is proportional to its share of the "GFCM Tonnage".

4. The "GFCM Tonnage" is calculated as follows. It is measured in tons of fish, crustacea and molluscs (in the rest of the paragraph referred to as "fish" only). The GFCM tonnage includes all fish produced by capture fisheries and aquaculture in the Mediterranean (but not in the Black Sea) as reported by FAO. All tonnage is converted into GFCM tonnage. Small pelagic species³ of fish are converted to GFCM tonnage by multiplying the quantity of small pelagics by a factor of 1. All other species are multiplied by a factor of 4. A three-year average is used. The three year period begins with the year that occurred five years before the calendar year in which the start of the budget period falls.