Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-26-Speech-1-129"
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"en.20050926.16.1-129"2
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"Mr President, previous speakers have not even bothered to visit the countries with which we sign fisheries agreements; I have done so: I have been in the Comoros, I have lived amongst its people, I have seen how they live and I have seen the importance of this Agreement to the economic development of these islands. I therefore believe that we should not be talking nonsense before knowing what we are talking about.
I entirely agree with the rapporteur on this issue. I believe that this is an important Agreement for us and for the population of the Comoros and I therefore approve of its wording.
The Agreement helps to maintain the stability of the sector here and contributes to the development of those countries. We have moved on from the first exclusively commercial agreements to agreements by means of which we are helping those countries to develop.
The current structure of the agreements assists the development of these countries. We could probably do more if the fishermen and the shipowners were to participate more. The Committee on Fisheries’ proposals in this regard are reasonable and we fully support them; they would help us to avoid bureaucratic procedures.
We also need a general policy with regard to the whole of this area of the Indian Ocean, in which, although our presence in terms of seiners is significant, the general presence of the European Union is very small compared to the fishing of these resources by Asian countries such as Taiwan, Japan or the Republic of Korea, who are exploiting those resources at the expense of the population.
The European Union’s volume of fishing is very moderate and I naturally agree with the rapporteur’s complaint that there is a kind of discrimination, by virtue of which, in the agreements with the south, it is the fishermen who have to pay, while in the case of the agreements with the north, this increase in payments that they now want to impose on us is not happening. In any event, the Agreement is important for us and for the countries of this area and I would naturally like this approach to be taken with regard to other aspects.
There could perhaps be reasons for opposing it in view of the considerations I have expressed, but I believe that the European Union is obliged to continue developing this type of relationship. These countries, and the Comoros in particular, desperately require our presence. The Comoros are three small remote islands in the Indian Ocean, they are not really in any great strategic position, they are in the Mozambique Channel, their citizens suffer from every possible disease – dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever and others – and the great problem facing these islands is precisely the absence of the elements required for development.
I believe that the Fisheries Agreement is something that can and must help, provided that we involve our seamen and fishermen much more in the economic development of these islands, for their own benefit and also for the benefit of the European Union."@en1
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