Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has far-reaching consequences for the long-term sustainable management of capture fisheries. When IUU fishing goes unchecked, the system upon which fisheries management decisions are based becomes flawed.
The proposed SPARTACUS project aims to introduce (in pilot areas) tools of artificial technology (robot system) in fish landing ports and aquaculture packaging units of fish. The robot will insert special tags in a specific area of the fish's head (operculum-gill cover) avoiding the injury of the fish and blood extraction. The tag will contain all the necessary information (and additional as an option) in order to comply with the council regulation No 104/2000 of December 17 1999, that dictates that all fish products may not be offered for retail sale to the final consumer, unless appropriate marking or labelling indicates:

a) the commercial designation of the species
b) the production method (caught at sea or in inland waters or farmed)
c) the catch area.

Since tags can be placed in principle on fish with a size of more than 250 gr, smaller fish should be placed in boxes and marked with special stickers that will comply with the regulation 104/2000.
Although in all EU countries regulation and legislation against IUU is in force categorised in a) measures to enhance monitoring, control and surveillance and to penalize non-compliance (b) measures affecting IUU fishing markets and profitability (c) measures to enhance flag State control and (d) other measures to combat IUU fishing (see Appendix I on page 31), the vast majority of the consumers are not aware of the fishing regulations and therefore the pressure of the public opinion is not active in the battle for the protection of the fish stocks and against IUU fishing. Therefore SPARTACUS will focus also in public awareness actions as one of the ways to combat IUU fishing is considering pressure of the consumers at the "market" stage of the fisheries industry chain.

The proposed SPARTACUS project aims to:

1) Develop and test a special artificial intelligence system (robot system) that will have the ability to insert in a fast and reproducible way specially designed tags in a special area of the fish's head (operculum-gill cover). The tag will contain various information (adjustable by the user) that will certify that the specific fish originates from legal fishing methodology. The advantages of such system include:

• Easy recognition of the origin of the fish (legal or illegal activity) by the consumers.
• Secure the production of the legally established fishermen co-operatives.
• Facilitate the awareness of the public towards consumption of legal products.
• Facilitate the traceability of the products.

2) Propose best practices and adaptation plans for the fish landing ports and aquaculture packaging units that will comply with the council regulation No 104/2000. Special attention will be given that the introduction of the new tools will not complicate the function of the fishing port but will be user friendly and smoothly adopted in the daily routine.

3) In parallel, actions to aware and inform the public opinion for the consequences of IUU fishing and prompt them to be proactive in their consuming preferences will be planned and will take place in pilot areas.
Therefore the objectives of SPARTACUS can be summarised as follows:

• Develop special artificial intelligence systems (robot arms) for the insertion of the tags that will assist the implementation of EU policies.
• Implement in a pilot scale, demonstration of the function of the tagging mechanisms in fish landing ports of South and North Europe as well as in aquaculture packaging units.
• Provide tools (through tagging) for public awareness against IUU fishing.
• Design special campaigns and dissemination of material for alerting consumers, fishermen and industry against IUU fishing.

Danish Leaflet	Danish Leaflet	Greek Leaflet	English Leaflet	Greek Leaflet IUU	TV/MIDT-VEST