Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-297"
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"en.20010116.12.2-297"2
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"Mr President, the common fisheries policy, as many have pointed out, has failed to conserve fish stocks at adequate levels to support a viable industry. This is due, at least in part, to the conflicting nature of some of the objectives of the CFP as laid down in Regulation 3760/92.
It is impossible to simultaneously satisfy both the market and industry while conserving resources. When the CFP is revised next year it is essential that the conservation of fish stocks and the protection of the marine habitat be made its primary and overriding objective, and the only way to do this is to implement a rigorous and comprehensive precautionary approach to fisheries management. The precautionary approach should mean that before any stock can be fished on a commercial basis there must be, at the very least, a scientific assessment of the stock and a conservatively-based total allowable catch.
In other words, the current pillage of certain types, certain deep-water stocks by some EU countries would not be allowed to happen. It means that any new fishing gear or any significant modification of existing gear must be evaluated for its potential impact on the target stock as well as any species caught as by-catch or any impact on the marine habitat. It means being conservative when one decides the level at which one wants to maintain a fish stock. The use of maximum sustainable yield or any of a number of other reference points is quite simply wrong, for they lead to over-fishing and stock collapse.
Targets and limited reference points must be established which will maintain the fish stock at a high enough level that the risk of stock depletion or collapse is insignificant. The best definition to date of the precautionary approach is the one contained in the UN fish stocks agreement, and many of these and other principles are defined there. The EU has accepted these ideas for some stocks and I think it is high time that it implemented them for its own stocks.
A number of things have been said already about Morocco and I just want to say that we would insist that it is entirely up to Morocco, as a coastal state with sovereignty over its fish and its exclusive economic zone, to decide what it wishes to do with these resources. We are therefore opposed to any kind of political or economic pressure being brought to bear on Morocco in order to encourage it or to coerce it to sign an agreement with the European Union. Secondly, we are adamant that no potential agreement with Morocco should involve any access to waters of Western Sahara. We do not recognise Moroccan sovereignty there and so Morocco has no right whatsoever to discuss access to EU vessels there, nor for that matter has the EU any right to enter into such negotiations with Morocco or to allow EU flag vessels to go there as has happened in the past."@en1
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