Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-07-Speech-1-101-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110307.19.1-101-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Fraga Estévez, the Chair of the Committee on Fisheries, for this oral question and to say that I very much welcome the involvement of Parliament in these procedures. I also share her concerns in general. We will do our best in order to achieve the best results.
Let me tell you a little about the current fisheries agreement with Mauritania. This agreement aims to ensure the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries stocks. We also want to prevent and combat illegal fishing and promote the development of port infrastructures and the protection of the marine environment.
Through this agreement, fishing opportunities have been reduced, and the fees to be paid by ship owners for licences and per tonne caught have been considerably increased. Difficulties remain, and we are looking into how to address them in the best possible way. I agree with Mrs Fraga on this matter.
The agreement with Mauritania has become the most important in financial terms – it is the most important of our agreements. Given this development, the Commission is considering the introduction of a strong element of conditionality related to the sectoral support in the new protocol. This will happen through, inter alia, the decoupling of the access rights payments and the payments for sectoral support. We are going to decouple this. This will enable us to react more effectively to problems in the implementation of sectoral support and, at the same time, to secure the access payment and thus, the fishing activities of EU vessels, because we would not like to disrupt the fishing activities of EU vessels.
Regarding sectoral support, the execution rate was very high in 2008 and 2009. 2010, on the other hand, marked a very low level of implementation of the sectoral policy funds by Mauritania – only 52%. This was mainly due to the high retention rate of relevant funds for the Mauritanian Ministry of Finance. Last year, in agreement with the Mauritania side, the Commission took the decision to split the payment of the sectoral support into two tranches. The Commission also retained EUR 9 million out of a total of EUR 18 million – half of the total – until a higher absorption was reached.
Moreover, with the aim of addressing all these deficiencies, a new mechanism, a trust account – the CAS – was introduced as a temporary measure. The CAS will become operational during the first semester of 2011. The establishment of this new special account will contribute towards guaranteeing that the funds allocated go directly to the sectoral support. This is what we want.
The new protocol after 1 August 2012 will take into account the forthcoming CAS reform. In this connection, the negotiating mandate includes a ‘human rights and democratic principles’ clause for the first time. We hope that the Council will adopt this new mandate next week. As for the fight against IUU fishing, since the entry into force of our new regulation, the Commission has cooperated closely with the Mauritanian control authorities. We are trying to ensure appropriate information of the conservation and management measures pursuant to that regulation.
Lastly, investments by the EU fishing sector are made in line with the Mauritania action plan. This plan aims at facilitating the establishment of European private enterprises and joint enterprises between Mauritanian and European operators and identifying the most appropriate forms of private-public partnership."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples