Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-07-09-Speech-3-492"
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"en.20080709.41.3-492"2
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"Mr President, I would like to say that, once again, we have worked very hard in the Committee on Fisheries so that the Commission and the European Union can honour their commitments.
We will be very keen to know the outcome of the meetings which have been scheduled in various fora and joint committees to resolve some of the technical questions to which I referred in the report and which can, as is still the case in Morocco, tie up a fleet which desperately needs access to the fishing opportunities for which it is paying large amounts of money.
Despite all this, with its duration increased to four years, as you said, this protocol continues, along with the Morocco protocol, to be the most important fisheries collaboration between the European Union and developing countries, and for this reason we obviously seek a vote against the two new amendments proposed and swift approval of the Commission proposal.
It was perhaps the Commission’s initial lack of interest in the negotiations that led to some of the criticisms in the report about the procedure that was followed, despite the fact that Mauritania continues to be one of the European Union’s major fishing partners and despite the fact that the financial contribution is still one of the largest and involves ever-greater commitments towards developing the Community fisheries sector.
It is therefore difficult to understand why the text that has been negotiated entails a big reduction in the permissible catch of between 25% and 50% for almost all categories of fish and why, in addition to the technical measures, conditions have been accepted which for us are difficult to understand.
As we have said on several occasions in this forum, and as Europêche said in a letter to you, Mr Borg, there is not much point in negotiating marvellous fishing opportunities – which is not the case in this Agreement – if we then accept technical conditions which prevent us being able to take proper advantage of those possibilities.
The minimum size set for octopus bears no relation to the size set for adjacent areas; the additional two-month biological recovery period negotiated at the last minute, virtually unbeknown to the fisheries sector, was based on a poor quality scientific report and was introduced at the request of the Mauritanian party without the necessary prior consultation of the joint scientific committee; it is based solely on cephalopods, despite the fact that the recovery period affects all categories. All of this is a disturbing indication of how the European Commission sometimes negotiates.
It is for this reason, Mr President, Mr Borg, that we must renew our insistence on greater involvement for the European Parliament, at least as an observer at the joint committee meetings, as a minimum institutional transparency requirement, which should have been met some time ago.
It would not be a bad thing, given the new powers which we hope the European Parliament will acquire with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty – which was imminent and I am convinced must take place soon – for the Council and the Commission to prepare themselves for involving Parliament in a role which, sooner or later, it will be called upon to fulfil.
We also hinted in the report that we were disappointed that the Commission, and here I am afraid that I have to disagree with you, Mr Borg, had failed to respect the relative stability of the Agreement, by giving itself powers to relax a criterion which on other occasions it has regarded as virtually sacrosanct, an action which we will keep a very close watch on, as our remit demands.
I hope that in the case to which you referred, that of cephalopods, the allocation keys based on relative stability and on the historic fishing rights in this fishing ground will be respected."@en1
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