Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-19-Speech-5-058"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000519.3.5-058"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna on the amount of work he has put into this, indeed into all issues that come before the Committee on Fisheries. The whole question of what we do to protect marine life outside our waters is not a very popular issue. It does not exercise the public mind an awful lot in the European Union. There is a growing understanding of the efforts that the European Union is making, and I would say that for the many years during which the Common Fisheries Policy has existed, the Union has failed, to a large extent, to convince the European public of the importance of the role it has been playing in trying to establish the facts of marine life, to provide the public with the scientific information and to take the necessary action.
Too often we do not get the sort of support from Member States and from national governments that is needed to convince the public that determined and substantial efforts have to be made to enforce all the laws and regulations. In spite of these efforts, something like 80% of all the major stocks are still over-exploited and continue to diminish.
The measures before us may be the best that we can manage, but they seem rather weak and hardly sufficient to achieve what we want. We are the biggest market and the most lucrative market in the world for fish products. We should be prepared to use our muscle and impose every necessary trade sanction on all the states and all the products that are associated with this illegal trade. It is not just a matter of protecting our interests, because stocks outside our 200-mile limit can be affected by our activities. Stocks within our limit can be affected by activities outside it. There is also the whole question of our obligation to protect this resource that belongs to mankind.
I believe that for some people who have the money to buy large ships and equip them in today's world there is no limit to the capacity that can be applied to extracting resources from the sea. I do not think that individuals should have the right, just because they have the money and capacity and because they happen to live in a certain region, to go out and exploit those resources and become very rich as has happened in some instances. We may be reaching the point where this resource is tendered and paid for and the public can get some compensation from those who get rich very quickly – they are already doing this in New Zealand. The European Union in its review of the Common Fisheries Policy should take into account the fact that this is a public resource and that a small number of people think they have the right to go out and get rich from it. There would be widespread public support for some sort of system that requires compensation.
In the old days people went out and took risks with their lives and bad equipment; today they have the capacity to know where the fish are, to get them, and to exploit them and they should have to pay a fee for that."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples