Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-04-Speech-3-104"
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"en.20021204.5.3-104"2
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"Mr President, I would like to devote my speech to the cod crisis. It is a particularly bad state of affairs and reference is often made to the situation in Newfoundland, where fishing has gone on to the point where the Grandbanks are empty, but we should also set in motion drastic measures to stop excessive fishing. However, we have not always done this in the past.
By way of comparison, there was a shortage of cod in the 1960s, followed by a huge surplus in the North Sea in the Seventies. To this day, nobody can explain why that was. We do not know enough, and certainly not everything there is to know, about cod.
During 2000 – 2001, cutbacks by 40% were imposed, which was very drastic. The effects of such a measure have left the sector with little resilience to take any further knock-backs. The sector is under pressure and we are expected to take a careful approach. We should not consider last year's reserves as an option; these had a negative impact on cod stocks. This is an example of hasty, rather than careful, decision-making, with a negative result.
Needless to say, the situation is very worrying, but I should like to repeat that we need to produce far clearer information before we can take draconian measures of this kind. We cannot sell this to the people who work in the fishing industry. We cannot simply discontinue cod fishing. We can certainly not pass on the problem to the flatfish sector, since cod is caught in that sector as a secondary line. Neither flatfish stocks, nor cod stocks would justify this.
We are not simply talking about fish stocks, but also about the socio-economic implications of another major intervention. We should, therefore, think carefully and take informed decisions. I am thus pleased with Mr Stevenson's resolution. We should think of alternatives, think in terms of cutting the link with flatfish, and consider setting up a compensation fund."@en1
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