Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-181"
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"en.20000301.12.3-181"2
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"Mr President, I too welcome your report Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, for as far as I can see, we share the same opinion where progress in the protection of fish stocks and ecosystems in the North Sea is concerned. I also believe that the Commission’s achievements in terms of the monitoring measures speak for themselves. I can assure you that I will continue, in the future, to pursue the course of action we have embarked on. I would especially like to draw to your attention the fact that following the bilateral negotiations with Norway at the end of last year, medium-term management measures for cod, shellfish, plaice, sea salmon and mackerel were agreed and laid down.
As you can see, these measures ought to provide greater selectivity. We will, of course, continue to take a close interest in how the situation develops once these new measures have been introduced. I hope the developments will be of a positive nature.
I would also like to remind you that similar measures had already been introduced for North Sea herring prior to this, in cooperation with Norway. These medium-term measures are completely in line with the precautionary approach to fish stocks management recently recommended at the International Council for Marine Research. The Commission aims to extend the medium-term measures to stocks beyond the North Sea as well. This has already happened in the case of certain important stocks in the Baltic, such as herring and sprats.
I am taking as read the fact that the implementation of the new regulation for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juvenile marine organisms as of 1 January this year will bring about a drastic improvement in the protection of juveniles, not just in the North Sea but also in all the other Community waters of the north-east Atlantic.
We have made provision for new minimum catch sizes for mussels and crustacea in this regulation, alongside existing minimum catch sizes. We have imposed a fishing ban in respect of sand eels off the north-east coast of England and the East coast of Scotland, and we have stipulated that trawlers may only catch shrimps using funnel nets or nets that have a sorting grid.
In addition, the provisions from the old technical measures regulation will, of course, be adopted and simplified as well. I will quote a few examples: we have streamlined mesh sizes in such a way that species are grouped according to whether they are small, medium-sized or large, and one particular mesh size applies to each grouping. For example, a uniform mesh size of 100mm applies to all larger species in northern waters. In southern waters, a mesh size of 77mm applies to hake and other species. So as to enable juveniles to get away, when catching Norway lobster and crabs in northern waters nets with square-meshed panels must be used which are arranged in such a way that the mesh cannot close. As you know, when Norway lobster are caught, large quantities of juveniles of other species are often caught along with them. These were just a few examples."@en1
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