Council Directive 91/492/EEC laying down the health conditions for the production and the placing on the market of fishery products.

The Directive sets out hygiene standards for the placing on the market of fishery products, aquaculture products and bivalve molluscs. It forbids the placing on the market of poisonous fish of specified families and fishery products containing biotoxins. The establishments performing the preparation, processing, chilling, freezing, packaging or storage of fishery products, factory-vessels, auction and wholesale markets must be approved and are subject to regular inspections by the competent authorities of each Member State. The Directive establishes also conditions for the imports of fishery products from third countries, which include a health certificate, the placing of an identification mark and the drawing up of a list of approved establishments. The annex to this Directive establishes qualitative controls as per: 1) Conditions applicable to factory vessels; 2) Requirements during and after landing; 3) General conditions for establishments on land; 4) Special conditions for handling fishery products on shore (fresh, frozen, thawing, and processed products); 5) Health control and monitoring of production conditions, which include general and special checks; 6) Packaging; 7) Identification marks; 6) Storage and transport.