Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-16-Speech-4-042"
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"en.20030116.2.4-042"2
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"Mr President, first of all, I would like to wish everyone here in the House a happy new year!
Secondly, Commissioner, I was very pleased to hear your constructive comments with regard to various studies, procedures and approaches. It seems there are still positive movements in the fisheries sector after all. For 30 years, we have failed to curb overfishing in any real way. Demand, the local employment situation, sectoral interests, scientific evidence and national interests have proved to be irreconcilable. Indeed, that is why the planned reform of the common fisheries policy turned out to be so limited in scope.
Stocks are continuing to decline. For this reason, fish farming geared towards sustainability is the only sensible option for the future that I can see at present. I would like to express my thanks to Hugues Martin. His own–initiative report on aquaculture is a particularly good example of the pro–active approach adopted by members of the Committee on Fisheries when there are problems to be solved. The relevant communication from the Commission underlines the fact that Parliament can certainly take the initiative on important issues. Aquaculture is undoubtedly the alternative to overfishing, which has no future. In recent years, as we have heard, it has developed very positively and has created countless jobs in the European Union as well. It has become an important industry in coastal regions, offering further potential, which must be fully exploited.
However, it is not a panacea. It is worth looking more closely. Fish farming creates similar problems to intensive animal rearing on land. Waste discharges, parasites, chemicals, fish feed: these are just some of the key words. To cite only one example, the total annual discharge of waste from the Scottish fish farms is equivalent to that of a major city.
I greatly welcome the operations and success of aquaculture, but I call for sensible, high–quality and sustainable fish farming. The focus on quantity at rock–bottom prices merely results in ecological and economic problems. It would therefore be more sensible to work towards quality – and, I believe, also towards diversity of fish species, each of which needs specific attention, and that can be expensive, of course. As the saying goes, the faster you climb, the harder you fall, and that will not benefit anyone, neither the coastal regions nor the consumers."@en1
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