Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-25-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20100225.4.4-016"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner Damanaki, ladies and gentlemen, my eyes were opened to the EU’s common fisheries policy and its destructive consequences in 2002, when, following a majority vote in the Swedish Parliament, Sweden decided on a unilateral ban on cod fishing for a year, but was prevented from implementing it by the European Commission.
Despite the fact the Sweden intended to compensate its commercial fishermen for the ban and the fact that researchers in the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea had recommended a total ban on cod fishing for a number of years and despite the fact that the various cod stocks along the Swedish coast had been wiped out or reduced by between 70 and 90%, the principle of the common fisheries policy was more important. If everyone else overfishes, Sweden must overfish too, according to the Commission. In other words, exploitation was mandatory for EU Member States.
The last reform of the fisheries policy was completed in 2002 and it has not proved capable of tackling the difficult problems that the fisheries industry was already facing ten years ago, namely that far too many vessels that are far too efficient are competing for far too few, and increasingly fewer, fish. The last vessels to catch bluefin tuna were subsidised by the EU as recently as 2005 in the Mediterranean. Between 2000 and 2008, EU taxpayers shelled out EUR 34 million to build and modernise tuna vessels at a time when stocks were on the verge of collapse. A similar logic is in evidence in the Baltic Sea. In recent years, the Swedish Board of Fisheries has paid out EUR 5.4 million to scrap some of the largest tuna fishing vessels – the same vessels that were built with the aid of EU money.
A radical reform of the fisheries policy is needed. We believe that all types of harmful subsidies must be stopped. EU vessels with tax-free fuel and access agreements provided by taxpayers are currently emptying African seas of vital food supplies and competing unfairly with African fishermen, while at the same time destroying ecosystems.
Ahead of today’s vote on the report on the Green Paper, I would call on all of my fellow Members to at least remove one bad paragraph from an otherwise largely excellent report. I am referring to paragraph 121, which states that the EU’s external fisheries policy should defend European fisheries interests. I do not think that it befits the EU to pursue such a policy in 2010."@en1
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