Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-25-Speech-4-181"
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"en.20011025.5.4-181"2
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking you, Mrs Attwooll, for preparing this report. I have been listening to the debate very attentively and now feel somewhat obliged to clarify a few things because there seem to be some quite serious misunderstandings about this Commission proposal.
At some point we are going to have to decide which of these two things is to have priority. Parliament has also said in this connection that it is not appropriate to amend the provisions of a regulation that was adopted less than two years ago for a period of six years. In view of the present difficult situation regarding stocks, I think the time has now come to talk about this question, too.
Finally, Amendment No 6 amplifies a provision that was included in the regulation at your instigation, and that provision bans FIFG aid for exports or for the formation of joint ventures. We have already discussed this point in connection with the previous agenda item. The Commission is in total agreement on this point and suggests that the lists of countries that break these rules should also be published.
Finally, the Commission is unable to agree to Amendment No 10 because it involves a procedure internal to the Commission, for which the Commission alone is competent. It ought therefore to be handled under the Commission's aegis.
First there is the question, do we need a fleet policy or not? In my opinion we do need a fleet policy and we need an effective – and more effective – fleet policy because the present rules are far from adequate. We have tremendous overcapacity in our European fleet as a whole, and if we do not adjust that fleet to possible future fishing opportunities, we will never be rid of these difficulties.
I would also like to say to you clearly and in all honesty that we will not meet that objective at all with MAGP IV. With MAGP IV we are a long way from achieving a reduction of 30%, let alone 40%. There is a report with which you are probably familiar, I hope you are, which says that we will at best achieve 5% over the full MAGP period and even that is very unlikely. What is more likely is that the entire MAGP IV exercise will have had no effect. That is the reality, that is the truth and that is what we have to deal with.
But there is a second principle we must see as well. In my opinion it makes little sense to isolate fleet policy from the rest of the common fisheries policy. We must see it in the context of the other essential political elements of our common fisheries policy. We therefore believe that it is entirely correct to include consideration of the future of fleet policy when devising our new common fisheries policy, which we intend to do next year.
The proposal we have submitted can be understood only in this light. MAGP IV expires next year and that would mean that we would have to isolate all other areas of the new fisheries policy from that of fleet policy. That is why we had the idea of seeking this one-year extension so that they could be synchronised. But we do not really want at the same time to lay ourselves open to the charge of prolonging an ineffective arrangement for a year. That was why we also proposed a few measures to improve this MAGP.
There is also the fact that a few Member States are not even keeping to the modest targets of MAGP IV. Unfortunately, the Commission has no other way of enforcing compliance with the MAGP objectives than to introduce proceedings before the European Court of Justice. That is why we have also submitted proposals to that effect.
This brings me to the amendments that have been tabled. Amendments Nos 1 to 3 and 5 are concerned with the question of safety at sea. Here, too, I want to clearly say that no one should accuse the Commission of being against more safety at sea. We too are aware of the problems and accidents that have recently occurred at sea. So we are also aware of how necessary it is to improve safety, and we are also promoting that. Community resources are being deployed to improve safety. I do not dispute that in some cases enhancing safety increases the weight of the ships. But that has nothing to do with the fact that we cannot therefore demand that the increase in weight of just one ship should be compensated for by taking more ships out of use. That is what this is about. After all, there is no prohibition on installing more additional safety devices on a particular vessel. That is why we are not prepared to accept these four amendments.
We are able to accept Amendments Nos 11 and 12 because the application of the safety clause remains confined to vessels under 12 metres in length that no longer fish with drag nets. This is of particular benefit to older vessels that are engaged chiefly in coastal fishing and for which an increase in capacity and engine power are justified, subject to clear conditions, if that enhances safety.
I am quite concerned about Amendments Nos 4, 7, 8 and 9. They reject any form of restriction on access to FIFG aid. But this is after all the only mechanism we have for reducing fleet capacity at all. It must be obvious that the Community’s lavish modernisation aid is thwarting all our efforts to reduce the size of the fleet. How will it ever work if we first offer Community public funds for ships to be broken up and then also use Community funds to encourage the purchase of new ones?"@en1
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