Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-14-Speech-3-406"
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"en.20071114.37.3-406"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of the European Commission’s recovery plan for bluefin tuna, set in motion by ICCAT, is to respond to scientists’ concerns regarding the critical condition of the stock brought about by overfishing.
harmonise penalties in order to prevent discrepancies in the way in which the Member States implement this regulation.
Lastly, the infringement procedures opened in recent months against some Member States for their failure to respect the 2007 catch quotas are undoubtedly called for and necessary, but the short period for the entry into force of the current provisions during this year should also be borne in mind.
Bearing in mind also that stock management is particularly complex, especially in areas in which there is strong competition with other non-EU fleets, in particular in the Mediterranean, there is a need for improved respect of the principle of reciprocity to ensure that the aims set out by ICCAT are fairly pursued. Those measures will be effective only if their principles and their provisions are applied by both the Member States and non-EU countries.
In conclusion, Mr President, I should like to offer my particular thanks to all those colleagues who have taken part in this work.
The plan has been criticised in a variety of ways, illustrating the fact that scientific experts and fishermen hold differing views regarding the need for stocks to be protected. It does, however, offer an appropriate response to those needs that have been highlighted, providing, as it does, for a steady reduction in the catch quota of up to 20% between 2006 and 2010, an increase in minimum size to 30 kg, the limitation of fishing periods and the stepping up of control measures to combat illegal fishing.
In detail, some elements of the plan were strengthened during the Committee’s work, with proposals to:
make provision and ask for fisheries plans to be submitted by Member States under the fisheries agreements, even in the case of fish stocks which are in good biological shape, since one of the main problems is a fleet capacity which exceeds the quotas available;
establish a balance in each Member State between its quotas and the capacity of its fattening farms;
remove the derogations relating to fishing areas and minimum sizes: these conflict with the views held by all scientific experts and with the opinion of the majority of the Member States. Moreover, these derogations are not justified from the biological point of view, since the Mediterranean and the Atlantic are populated by a single stock, and are severely distorting competition, leading to more intensive fishing in the areas concerned, including by vessels which do not traditionally operate there, and reducing the effectiveness of checks;
urge Member States to respect their requirements to report data and information to the Commission, closing national fisheries if no catch data are provided by Member States;
draw up a plan to reactivate traps in the Atlantic and to recover traps which are no longer active in the Mediterranean in order to preserve a sustainable and highly selective method of catching tuna;
make provision for financial compensation from the European Fisheries Fund to be paid to fishermen during the closed season in order to safeguard and protect the socio-economic balance of fishery enterprises and fishermen;"@en1
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