Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-308"
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"en.20020612.9.3-308"2
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"Madam President, I offer my sincerest congratulations to my colleague, Catherine Stihler, for her excellent work, which gives the Council the opportunity to approve a much more balanced plan for these two species. I cannot, however, agree with her desire, as rapporteur, to reinstate hake in this report. As she well knows, I had tabled 13 amendments in committee aimed at softening the measures for hake, and more than half lapsed when the committee adopted the amendment tabled by Mr Varela, which separates the two species. Therefore, if we now approved the report for both species together, it would be highly unbalanced.
The Community fisheries policy has to find a balance among the measures on stock conservation, the reasonable adjustment of the fleet to each Member State and the maintenance of economic activity in fishing-dependent regions. It is a complex approach. First of all, because overfishing is not the only cause of stock depletion: the indiscriminate catching of species for fishmeal production interrupts the food chain for cod and hake and to a great extent causes the situation both species are going through. There are certainly highly significant differences between these two fisheries as regards their mortality and growth rates and the conservation measures needed. The situation of cod in the North Sea and off Scotland is different, just as the situation of northern hake off south-western Ireland differs from that off the French coast.
Not all species – and this is something we have to say out loud – and not all fishing grounds are in the same state. In this respect, the Committee on Fisheries considered that the hake and cod situations are different, and that hake should have different measures from cod, which should be adopted based on confirmed scientific reports. There is no single, unified and indisputable scientific basis to indicate that the northern hake stock has fallen below the biological safety limit, and there does not seem to be a need for drastic management measures to save this stock.
We cannot forget the great economic and social impact that these measures will have on the fishing communities. The Commission has not undertaken any study of these consequences or of those that must be taken into account when the plan is implemented, nor has it shown us an evaluation of the emergency measures it adopted in 2001. It must be remembered too that the TAC for hake was cut by 51% between 1999 and 2001.
The European fishing fleet quite reasonably needs to know what prospects there are for this activity. My group is therefore opposed to drastic cuts, which can be brought in over longer periods. We therefore support the rapporteur’s Amendment 8, and once again I sincerely congratulate her on the excellent work she has done."@en1
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