Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-17-Speech-3-338"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20031217.13.3-338"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, today we in this Parliament have adopted a resolution on the Union's role in the prevention of conflicts in Africa, and in particular, in the application of the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement in Ivory Coast. In this resolution the European Parliament calls on all the conflicting parties to scrupulously apply the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement.
The European Union has a responsibility in terms of preventing conflicts, and its various policies aimed at promoting commercial relations between Europe and developing countries represent a form of preventing this type of conflict. Commercial and human relations bring peoples closer together, contribute to their development and the development of their different economic sectors. My group therefore supports the fisheries agreement, because commercial agreements and relations between peoples promote peace and, in the case of fisheries agreements, also the development of the fisheries sector in the developing countries.
We therefore support this report by Mr Stevenson in favour of a one-year extension of the current protocol, with the amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries.
Ivory Coast is a country at civil war which we must help so that it can achieve peace and economic progress. We Socialists therefore believe that the message we are sending through the extension of this fisheries agreement is a positive one.
The war is not a reason to put an end to a fisheries agreement. If we did that it would be absurd and would increase the suffering of that country, and the same thinking would lead us to suspend imports of its products, such as coffee, cocoa or palm oil and, also, to suspend emerging oil operations and not to buy any more of its diamonds, its manganese, its iron, its cobalt, bauxite or copper.
Why is there this insistence on putting an end to commercial fisheries agreements which bring the European Union closer to the developing countries and then to promote exports from those countries of agricultural products, for example, and also minerals, oil or gas? Despite the war, the execution of the quotas allocated by the agreement, as in the case of tuna, has been good, and the level of catches of demersal species is improving.
We in the Socialist Group believe that this agreement is of great benefit to the port of Abidjan, which is the largest tuna-fishing base in West Africa, where catches are the raw material for a large local processing industry which is a key element in Ivory Coast’s development.
I believe that this is a good agreement illustrating how, in the case of a country which is faced with serious difficulties, fisheries agreements can operate well for both parties, the European Union and the developing country which is signing it with us."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples