Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-122"
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"en.20001115.4.3-122"2
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"in
We voted against the Jové Peres report on Community participation in the Regional Fisheries Organisations because it calls for the transfer of national sovereignties, which would be completely counterproductive.
For a number of years, as a member of the delegation for relations with Canada, I have been able to observe the operation of one of the regional organisations, NAFO (Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation), whose members are the countries of that region, including Canada, as well as all the countries that use traditional fishing zones in the region, including France, Spain and some other European countries. Every member country has a vote in the decision procedure. Now, from the moment the European nations concerned decided to communitise this issue and to be represented solely by the Commission they have just had a single vote. So the first effect of the uniting of our forces was to reduce the number of our votes from six to one. The countries of Europe, as a whole, have the same number of votes as Cuba, for example.
This situation does not worry the federalists for whom, when the Commission speaks with a single voice, we gain in strength. Unfortunately, it is ‘with a single voice’ in all senses of the phrase. What is more, our position is often weakened by our internal mechanisms, notably prior alignment to the lowest common denominator. On the whole, our interests are undermined, they are not defended with the necessary force, and the role of the Commission is primarily that of a police officer vis-à-vis Member States to get them to apply the binding decisions that have been adopted, sometimes in spite of themselves, in the regional organisation in question.
The Jové Peres report would not only like to regularise this situation for existing regional organisations and those that are in the process of being established, it would also like to reinforce it by putting paid to the Commission’s habit of calling on the support of technical experts from different Member States. According to the report, the Commission would need to recruit staff as a result and would be given the corresponding funds.
We cannot accept any of these approaches. We believe that the current system of representation by the Commission weakens instead of strengthens us, and we want every European nation to be fully represented within the regional fisheries organisations, even though it is clearly desirable that the Member States coordinate their positions."@en1
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