Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-25-Speech-4-168"
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"en.20011025.5.4-168"2
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". – Mr President, it is a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, substantially in support of what my colleague, Mrs Attwooll, from the Committee on Fisheries, has said.
The Committee on Legal Affairs looks at this issue through legal spectacles, as you would expect. From our point of view, it is not just important that the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy be achieved, though that is indeed important. We have to remember that the means through which the Community does this are means of the law, and therefore the principles of the law have to be respected in what is done.
The Committee on Legal Affairs thought that the Commission's proposals fell down on two important legal principles, at two important points. The first was the principle of proportionality, and in effect Mrs Attwooll has already spoken about that this afternoon. In recital 3 the Commission said: "Measures to improve safety should not lead to an increase in fishing effort and such measures should therefore be applied within the existing capacity objectives for the fleet". That is to say that improvements in safety can be ignored just if the capacity objectives are not being sustained, regardless of effort. But the aim we all have is to prevent over-fishing, and it is effort that catches fish, not capacity. Therefore proportionality requires deletion of that.
Secondly, in relation to the effective provisions about vicarious penalties. To require all segments of a national fleet to have achieved the annual objectives, as the Commission suggests, before any public aid for fleet modernisation or renewal can be granted, would be unlawful. It is contrary to the most rudimentary principles of natural justice. It would permit one fisheries segment to be penalised for things done, or left undone, in another. It could result in fishermen being penalised for the acts or omissions of their government and would thus constitute vicarious punishment. As a Scottish Member, I insist that these issues matter vitally to all parts of the Scottish fleet. Those who meet their targets for reduction of capacity should not be punished for those who do not and should not carry the can for failures by the UK Government or the Scottish Government."@en1
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