Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-324"
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"en.20030603.10.2-324"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking you, Mr Hudghton, Mr Stevenson and Mr Fava, for your reports on our proposals. I will turn to Mr Hudghton's report first.
That is an initial presentation and I will of course be pleased to answer your questions at the end.
As you know, the Commission's proposal covers a substantial amount of the regulation on technical measures. You said there is little interest because the proposal is so technical. Yes, but there is no other option: a proposal on technical measures has to be very technical. Furthermore, as a result of the problems with the cod and hake stocks, a number of Commission and Council regulations have been adopted which supplement or amend the regulation on technical measures. One of the main objectives of our proposal is therefore to draw together all these provisions, which are contained in many separate regulations, into a single regulation and thus make them far more manageable.
We also used this proposal, however, to introduce a number of new elements. There are three issues which arise here: firstly, we want to harmonise the provisions on the individual species of fish which are caught using trawl nets of various mesh sizes in all the Community waters in the north-east Atlantic. We want to avoid a situation in future in which a fishing vessel, which has been fishing in the Bay of Biscay, for example, and wants to continue fishing south of Ireland, is subject to different catch conditions. The harmonisation will also extend to the waters of the Skagerrak and the Kattegat, where separate provisions currently apply. Secondly, the rules should also apply to ships of less than 12 metres in order to provide better protection for young hake. Thirdly, we want to amend the provisions on grading the catches in order to reduce discards. We also propose setting out the detailed rules in Commission regulations, such as the percentage composition of the catches if fishing vessels carry trawl nets with two different mesh sizes on board, or the physical dimensions and immersion times for static nets.
On your question regarding the regional advisory councils, Mr Hudghton: as you know, we
have re-established these advisory councils as part of the reform and they are also included in the basic regulation. This basic regulation states that the advisory councils can be consulted. We cannot change this option envisaged in the basic regulation and make it a general obligation in a secondary regulation; there are legal obstacles to this. However, I can tell you that we ourselves have a massive interest in ensuring that these advisory councils are consulted as far as possible.
Now, technical measures are certainly no longer enough on their own – as we all know – to achieve sustainability in fisheries. For more than a decade, scientists have therefore been demanding the management of the fishing effort as well to enable a sustainable conservation policy to be pursued. That is precisely what we are aiming for with our proposal on the western waters which is dealt with in the Stevenson report. As you know, the special provisions on access by Spanish and Portuguese ships to the Irish Box and on access to the Portuguese coastal waters lost their legal basis from 1 January 2003. However, as the relevant regulations from 1995 did not establish any time limit for the western waters, we must remove the legal uncertainty which exists here.
We are therefore proposing a new regulation to replace the existing regulations, containing the following provisions: we want to restrict the fishing effort in the ICES sub-areas of the western waters for all Member States in a non-discriminatory way. We propose defining the fishing effort so that the reduction in fishing opportunities since 1995 and the actual fishing effort deployed between 1998 and 2002 are taken into account. We want to limit the fishing effort for pelagic species as well and we want further restrictions on access to waters in the outermost regions.
I do not think anyone should create a threat scenario here and be alarmed about the prospect of a Spanish armada. As we have seen in recent months, that is really not the case. We must not forget that the aim is to restrict the fishing effort in general and the issue of relative stability comes into play here. It is therefore inappropriate to act as if the Spanish fishing boats were fishing the waters dry.
Let me make one other thing clear: the proposal before us is based exclusively on scientific evidence, which was not the case with the old Irish Box.
Let me turn briefly to Mr Fava's report, which deals with the Action Plan to counter the social, economic and regional consequences of the restructuring of the EU fishing industry. We have attempted, in consultation with the Member States, to assess the potential job losses and the need for financial resources to alleviate the socio-economic impacts. We have held meetings in the Member States – one last September, and one this April – and we also consulted the fishing sector, the stakeholders, in January. Your report, Mr Fava, contains fifteen recommendations which I can broadly endorse because they comply with the general guidelines of the common fisheries policy and support the long-term goals of our Action Plan."@en1
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