Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-10-Speech-2-159"
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"en.20040210.8.2-159"2
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"Mr President, the Northern hake stock is outside safe biological limits. This is basically ICES' way of saying that it is in deep trouble. That is why the Commission has been trying for some years to convince the Council of the need for a recovery plan.
The recovery plan proposed had a number of positive elements, including a formula for setting TACs and a reduction in fishing effort. Nonetheless, in its 2003 assessment ICES noted that the reductions indicated in the proposed plan are very far from achieving cuts in fishing mortality that could rebuild the stock in the short term: in other words, ICES is basically saying that even the Commission's proposal was not enough to ensure rapid stock recovery.
What have the Council and the Committee on Fisheries done? They have seriously weakened what was already a very weak proposal, primarily by removing any vestige of a reduction in fishing effort: the very thing that is most needed. Council even went one step further by increasing the TACs for hake by almost a third where the Commission had recommended a reduction.
In December 2002 it was announced with great ado that the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy was a great success and, amongst other things, it was said that recovery plans with effort reduction were to be applied. But at the Council meeting in December, the Council set 199 TACs in total. As an indication of the seriousness of the situation the Commission recommended cuts of greater than 10% for a quarter of them – that was 49 stocks. But the Council rejected much of that advice. For 42 stocks it set TACs that were more than 10% higher than the Commission's proposal. In some cases it set TACs at double, or even treble, the recommendations. For ten stocks they adopted an increase where the Commission had recommended a decrease.
If this is the way Council and the Fisheries Committee are going to continue they are basically proving correct the cynics and all those who said that the reform of the common fisheries policy was not going to see any achievable result in relation to sustainable fishing.
Something has to be done. The Commission is too soft on this issue and it needs to be more radical. The Council needs to take a realistic approach to the situation facing the fisheries industry and listen to the scientists' advice. It must listen to ICES' advice to ensure the survival of the fishing industry in Europe, otherwise we are basically voting for its demise. It is regrettable that the Fisheries Committee could actually reduce what was already an inadequate proposal by the Commission."@en1
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