Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-07-Speech-3-258"
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"en.20080507.19.3-258"2
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"The truth is that what Mr Stevenson has just said is a general feeling that we all share, because we have all been finding that we are speaking at these late hours for many years now.
Our fleet has restricted its fishing effort, through both cuts in TACs and capacity limitation and the creation of protected areas.
There are other issues in relation to these species, such as the suitability of the TAC and quota system for managing these stocks, which is extremely difficult to do because these are mixed fisheries.
Another issue appears to be, and is, the need to tackle the problem of discards, improving management in this area. Another problem that needs to be corrected is the management of fishing effort, because the Commission made the mistake of including all vessels holding deep-sea licences in the definition of vessels requiring special permits, which has led to much confusion.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that I am going to listen to all of you and also to the Commission, and I will conclude.
I think that even the Commissioners should start protesting. I urge Mr Borg and Mrs Fischer Boel to protest too so that these debates are scheduled for a more reasonable hour, not only for our convenience, but also because it is much easier for the public and the sectors concerned to find out about them.
However, this evening we are talking about deep-sea species, and at this point I would like to remind you that European fleets began fishing these stocks in the 1990s when demersal species were in decline, and when cod in particular were disappearing, and that the Commission communication to which my report refers aims to assess the effectiveness of the regulations from two points of view: adequacy and implementation.
The truth is, as I say in my report, that the initial allocation of quotas to the Member States was made and even extended before we had sufficient biological information, which resulted in successive distributions based on data that was not entirely reliable; therefore some Member States did not use up the quotas assigned to them, whilst others found their quotas were running out in the first few months of the year.
The truth is also that the lack of knowledge of the geographical structure of these species and the lack of reliable scientific data meant that TACs and quotas were set for extremely broad management areas and that they were also too restrictive, even going beyond the conditions imposed for species subject to recovery plans.
The truth is also, as we need to acknowledge, that the classification leaves a lot to be desired, because deep water species are considered to be all those living at a depth greater than 400 metres, this merging together a wide range of species that do not have any biological, zonal or morphological characteristics in common.
I would say to the Commission that of course it seems necessary to differentiate more clearly between species requiring protection – and there are many of them – and other species that provide an alternative to demersal species and for which long-term fleet objectives should be set.
The truth is that the Commission has already been obliged to withdraw species from the list and to recognise that they are merely taken as by-catches in shallow-water fisheries, and, for example, on a proposal of the United Kingdom, tusk was taken off the list of deep-water species and the alfonsinos quota is not counted when it is fished with pelagic trawls.
In my view, the Commission should eliminate any differences in treatment for the various species that are not fully justified as a matter of urgency, and I would also like to point out that progress has been made in these fisheries and that the Community fleet is already implementing many measures that are not, however, implemented by other non-European fleets fishing in the same areas."@en1
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