Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-23-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20031023.1.4-014"2
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"Mr President, it is fortunate that the Commission has finally come around to the idea of separating cod and hake, having initially intended to deal with the two species under the same recovery plan, which would not have allowed for an understanding of the characteristics specific to each of these two stocks.
The extremely drastic action that the Commission proposes for the long term – five to ten years – is based on a particularly alarmist diagnosis made by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Two types of consideration cast a serious shadow, however, over the scientific rigour and objectivity of this analysis.
The first is the failure to take account of the realistic observations made by the professionals, who claim that there has been a geographical shift of cod towards the northern part of the North Sea. This migration is attributed to the significant and undisputed warming of the waters. Scientists have failed to study this phenomenon and instead concentrate solely on the size of fishermen’s catches. This is a widespread problem, which affects the entire common fisheries policy (CFP) and it is fortunate that the Committee on Fisheries has asked the Scientific and Technological Assessment (STOA), at my behest, to provide us with information on the effects of global warming on fish stocks. This inadequate credibility of scientific opinion is also a matter of concern to the Council, which has just decided to allocate more substantial appropriations to improving it. This failure to take account of the views of fishermen also highlights the lack of appropriate coordination between the two sources of information, the scientific and the professional. This is another major flaw in the CFP, and this is also acknowledged by the Commission, which wants the future transnational regional advisory councils to be the forum in which these two categories of data will be addressed jointly. When the quality of data is inadequate, we know full well what happens: the scientists take refuge behind the precautionary principle, by interpreting it in the broadest possible way, and the Commission tries do outdo it, each party protecting itself as comprehensively as possible.
The second consideration that makes one wonder about the quality of the ICES’ evaluations is their systematic exoneration of any significant effects of industrial fisheries on cod stocks. It is strange to say the least, that the ICES talks about profit and losses for a type of fisheries that clearly has a significant effect, given the tonnage caught and the nature of targets, on cod stocks. Our rapporteur does address this point but far too cautiously. I suppose it is a start, though.
This was, incidentally, almost the only point on which the report diverges slightly from the Commission’s original proposals because it confines itself basically to supporting them as they stand, without subjecting them to any form of critical analysis and without proposing any changes. We are somewhat surprised that a parliamentary report should say so little about the genuine suffering felt by the communities that will be hard hit by this plan, communities that we represent.
The fishing professionals concerned are particularly concerned at the implementation of the new instrument provided for in the reform of the CFP, which is to reduce the fishing effort. This essential point should have been debated at length and questioned in this Chamber, because what we have here is an archetypal recovery plan, which will become increasingly widespread. The fact that it is replacing a bad, expensive and ineffective instrument does not make the fishing effort a good instrument. The Commission intends to implement this measure before it has convincingly demonstrated its relevance and feasibility. It is extremely worrying that calculating reductions in the fishing effort should lead in practice to writing off examples of exceeding quotas, illegal catches and ‘black fish’, to the detriment of those who have stuck to their quotas.
This process, Mr President, is not undermined in the slightest by the report, to which we cannot, consequently, give our support."@en1
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