Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-405"
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"en.20060314.31.2-405"2
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"Mr President, let me first of all warmly congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Ó Neachtain, for a brilliant own-initiative report on introducing environmentally friendly fishing methods to the EU fisheries sector.
He has produced a very fitting conclusion to an initiative that, as he reminded us, was first started by the Irish Presidency. I agree with him and I agree with the Commissioner on the need to decriminalise honest fishermen. That is a crucial point that he brought out in his presentation. However, his report stresses two other points that I want to expand upon.
First of all, there is the need for the Commission to take a more wide-ranging view of measures to protect the marine environment and rebuild depleted fish stocks, in particular by studying factors other than over-fishing that may cause fish stocks to be depleted, such as pollution and global warming. As you know, Commissioner, there is mounting evidence that over-fishing has not been the only cause of the collapse of cod stocks in the North Sea. If that was so, the dramatic reduction in the number of fishing vessels that are now fishing for cod in the North Sea – numbers have collapsed by 60% through decommissioning in the last five years – would have led to a remarkable recovery in cod stocks, but that has not been the case.
It seems to me that the other factors – such as global warming or pollution or whatever other factors may be evident – should now be the basis of your review of the cod recovery programme, which I am delighted that you have agreed to carry out.
Indeed, the other point from Mr Ó Neachtain’s report that I want to emphasise is the point he strongly made on discards, when he emphasised that over 20 million tons of fish are discarded worldwide every year. One million tons are discarded in Europe every year. Commissioner, you said that two pilot projects were already under way. I thought you were also carrying out pilot projects in the North Sea. If you have any further information on the pilot projects and evidence concerning discards and how this may be tackled in the future I would very much like to hear it in your winding-up speech."@en1
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