Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-08-Speech-3-146"
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"en.20031008.13.3-146"2
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"Mr President, if I may, I too will begin by stressing Mr Cunha’s excellent qualities as a Member of this House and as a citizen of Europe. I would also like to emphasise how much he will be missed in this Parliament, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and in the Committee on Fisheries. I might add that I wish him every success with his duties in his senior position in the government of a great Portuguese region, the North. Even though I am a member of a different political party from Mr Cunha, furthermore, I do not have the problem of which the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Struan Stevenson, complained here. Since he is not a member of the UK Labour Party, Mr Stevenson distanced himself from UK Government policy. I do not have the same problem, but that is just a question of style: the British style on the one hand and, on the other, the Portuguese, Iberian style.
If I may, moreover, Mr President, I would like to begin by underlining how correct and balanced I believe Mr Cunha’s report, as well as the Commission communication, to be. I wish I could be as reserved as Commissioner Fischler, who to all intents and purposes confined himself to expressing his agreement with the report, which he felt endorsed the content of the Commission communication. That much is true. There does not seem to be any major disagreement between us on this matter. I would say that the European Union has developed a very interesting type of diplomacy in the field of fisheries. As Mr Stevenson also said, that diplomacy has led to a very interesting and very original model for fisheries agreements, one which we might even consider exemplary and which could quite happily act as a model for distant water fisheries negotiations between other countries.
That diplomacy should continue to develop freely, I would argue, with a view to upholding the interests of the European Union’s distant water fleet. This fleet must not be considered as belonging to Portugal, or to Spain, or to France: rather, it should be understood to be a European Union fleet, since the Commission is our only spokesperson, our only representative in these international relationships. Mr President, I support Mr Cunha’s report, as well as the content of the Commission’s text. I hope that distant water fishing in the European Union will continue to develop along the three axes of the conservation of resources, support for the poorest communities and also equal treatment for those working in the fishing industry. To conclude, I would say that we must combat illegal fishing and flags of convenience, which are, at times, the worst enemies of genuine fishing and fishermen."@en1
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