Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-14-Speech-3-418"
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"en.20070214.26.3-418"2
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".
Mr President, illegal fishing is a trend that is developing extensively today and seriously harming the activities of European fisheries, local fishing communities and fisheries in developing countries, not least in those with which the European Community has concluded fishing agreements.
Among the important measures, I should also mention those that consist in preventing illegal fishing products from being landed and marketed on the European market, and then, finally, the actions to be carried out in the field of European and international law. There are, in fact, legal vacuums today that prevent the crews of vessels carrying out illegal fishing activities from being challenged and punished.
To conclude, it is absolutely vital that we have a more integrated European policy, in terms both of control and monitoring and of penalties. It is from this global perspective that the report outlines a number of initiatives and proposes a number of measures that we are discussing here, with a view to the FAO meeting, in March, within the context of which it is crucial for us to appear far more proactive and far more dynamic.
It is also an activity that, I am afraid to say, is extremely lucrative. I would cite the example of bluefin tuna, particularly in the Mediterranean, specimens of which are sold at absolutely astronomical prices. We therefore find ourselves in a vicious circle, which leads to the gradual, though accelerated, depletion of fishery resources.
Legal fisheries – those that comply with the regulations – are, for their part, very heavily penalised by these illegal activities, which can, in fact, be defined in fairly broad terms. We are talking about illegal, unregulated, undeclared fishing. That therefore relates to many activities: pirate fishing, the use of unauthorised fishing gear, the catching of unauthorised species, unlicensed fishing and the policy of transferring cargo at sea from one boat to another. The scope of the illegal activities is extremely broad.
What, then, is the purpose of this own-initiative report? In 2002, the FAO launched an international action plan against illegal fishing, which was subsequently replaced by a European Union action plan, which was adopted by the Council in 2002. The plan was unfortunately implemented in a variety of ways, at different levels, by the Member States.
At this very moment, the European Commission is working on evaluating the Member States' action plans on the fight against illegal fishing ahead of the meeting of the FAO – the FAO's Committee on Fisheries – which will be held in the first week of March, in Rome, and which will be an opportunity to re-launch the international action plan against illegal fishing.
The European Union has a huge responsibility in this area. Why? Firstly, because the European Union is ranked third in the world in terms of fishing activities, after China and Peru. It has one of the world’s largest fleets. Moreover, it largely resorts to using flags of convenience, which cause a huge number of problems, not only for fishing, but also for maritime transport. Finally, the EU is also one of the world’s largest markets in fish.
The responsibilities are therefore many. The Commission’s response to us is that this whole business is complex, many parties come into play, nothing can be done by working alone, it is expensive, one cannot ask some Member States to comply with a number of rules and not ask the others to do the same, and so on. The pretexts and excuses for the lacklustre results are legion and, sadly, there have not been enough initiatives to fight effectively against this activity of illegal fishing which, once again, has developed at an extremely serious rate over the last few years.
The responsibilities are as much those of the port States, as they are called, as they are of the flag States or the States in which fishery products are marketed. There are in fact many levels: that of the regional fisheries organisations, that of the Member States, the European level; it is at all these levels that action must be taken, across the board, with the involvement of the Directorate-General for Fisheries and the Directorate-General for the Environment, the Directorate-General for Development and the Directorate-General for Trade. Hard work is therefore what is required here, but only action on the part of all these administrations and these political officials will prove truly effective.
What are the key measures in my report, which, I might add, has been unanimously adopted within the Committee on Fisheries, showing that this is indeed a concern shared by all of our Member States? There is the traceability of fishery products and the introduction of blacklists, that is to say, of lists of boats that are not authorised to fish or that have already been punished for illegal fishing activities. We should condemn today the lack of coordination and cooperation between the various sources of information regarding these boats, which are authorised or unauthorised to fish."@en1
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