Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-12-Speech-1-109"
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"en.20010212.7.1-109"2
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"Mr President, Mr Nicholson's report underlines the serious crisis now affecting fish stocks in the waters around Britain and Ireland. The very fact that the Commission has found it necessary to implement emergency measures in four separate areas to save exhausted fish stocks, serves to illustrate the total failure of the common fisheries policy.
As of today, 12 February 2001, more that 40 000 square miles of the North Sea will be closed for 12 weeks to all white fish trawling. In addition, there will be emergency closures covering the West of Scotland, the Irish Sea, as we have heard, and North Atlantic hake and all of this comes on top of the savage cuts in total allowable catches and quotas announced by the Council last December.
The common fisheries policy in its current form has been operating for 18 years. The system of tax and quotas has led to massive quantities of healthy fish being dumped dead back into the sea. Over two million tonnes of fish a year, 25% of the total fish catch in the EU, are discarded in this manner. The system of MAGPs has also been a disaster. Member States who attempt to observe these rules are punished while other Member States ignore the MAGPs entirely. So, the CFP has failed in its core objectives. It has failed to sustain fish stocks and it has failed to secure a future for our fishermen. This latest round of cuts and emergency measures will again drive hundreds more out of the industry. The cod recovery measures in the Irish Sea last year cost the Irish Sea fleet a devastating drop in income of 42% during the closed season.
Despite this appalling crisis, despite the fact that there are too many fishermen chasing too few fish around the North Sea and the Irish Sea, this House voted overwhelmingly at its last part-session in January to do away with 6 and 12-mile limits around our shores, to open equal access to the North Sea and to break into the Shetland and Irish boxes.
These decisions will be regarded by many fishermen in the UK and Ireland as the last straw. Sixty-five per cent of the entire fishing resources of the EU are to be found in the waters surrounding the British Isles, that is the UK and Ireland. Why should we sit back and allow our fish to be plundered and allow our fishermen to be impoverished?
It was extremely foolish and short-sighted of this House to vote the way it did on the reports last month. It may well prove to be the last straw that breaks the camel's back and may drive the UK out of the common fisheries policy."@en1
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