Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-19-Speech-5-053"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000519.3.5-053"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, Commissioner, for some time we have been observing with increasing concern an influx of vessels, which do not belong to NAFO, the North-West Atlantic Fisheries Organisation, into the North-West Atlantic. To be quite frank, the owners of these vessels are stealing fish. They deliberately refuse to join NAFO, of which the European Union is a member. They think they can shirk all their responsibilities by doing so.
We have known for a long time what kind of problems the fishing industry as a whole has to contend with. Overfishing certainly plays an important part in this regard. What we therefore need, at the end of the day, is a coherent fishing policy, not just in our waters, but worldwide, where all parties act in concert and cannot play their own game. This concerns everyone: the international community, individual countries and the European Union. NAFO is therefore more important than you would think for everyone, and not just for the European Union. The consequences of uncontrolled fishing have already been disastrous, particularly for cod and redfish, two highly valued sources of food. Regulations – that is, either a total ban on fishing or at least clear restrictions on fishing – have been in force for both types of fish on the part of NAFO ever since the 1990s. In spite of all the efforts even simply to make these often stateless vessels comply with the protective and conservation measures, fishing continues to proceed unabated.
The problem for the European Union was previously the lack of a unified system of control when checking vessels of non-contracting parties in EU ports because they are obviously not subject to Community law. By transferring the NAFO regulations as international law directly into Community law which is in force in all EU Member States, the regulation presently under discussion thus gains importance. The NAFO regulations – and their assimilation in a unified system – which control and, if necessary, sanction the non-contracting parties and their frequently stateless vessels and fishing, are therefore the most important matter dealt with in the regulation.
Those who took part in a psychological study which exists in Germany, and which is appropriately named the ‘Fishing Game’, always headed for a resources catastrophe when they acted in isolation. In the final analysis, every one of them always took whatever was still left and this could no longer be replaced at the end. If we do not want to just have the choice between unreliable sources of food or unreliable fishing, then a functional form of cooperation between all the parties involved would be in our interests.
As a member of NAFO, and with a large number of Member States of its own, the EU fulfils the requirements for this. We therefore welcome this initiative, but would like a few minor points to be clarified in our motions in order to achieve greater coherency between NAFO and the EU.
A final word on this interesting term ‘international law‘. EU law also has its origins in international law. Certainly, we must now realise that EU Community law has become a term in its own right, and that this must be analogous to the evolving definition of the term ‘European Union’."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples