Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-04-Speech-3-268"
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"en.20080604.26.3-268"2
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"It is with regret that I would first of all like to say that the Commissioner has not heeded what virtually all Members have said and what the report states with regard to the 1 000 metres.
There is no, I repeat, no scientific evidence that the figure of 1 000 metres is appropriate. Why 1 000? Why not 800 or 1 200? There is no scientific evidence and we held a hearing with specialists and we were able to have with us the head of the Department of Oceanography and Fisheries of the Azores who has conducted many good, internationally-recognised studies of the seabed, along with other people with whom I spoke, other technical experts: there is no scientific evidence that the 1 000 metre figure is reasonable.
As a matter of fact, the 1 000 metres may well have been lifted from the discussions relating to the Mediterranean, yet we are not dealing with the same area, in fact we are talking about completely different areas! So let us wait and see, my friends: if we are rightly obliging the European Union to take the lead in these processes of protecting the deep seabed, which is a good thing, and hopefully bringing others along behind us, we have this environmental responsibility, but we also have to be a little objective and reasonable. If, to be able to fish in these areas we are talking about, we require fleets to submit scientific studies for which the Commission has been unable to put a figure on costs, nor tell us whether the Member States will be in a position to assess the quality and respond to these scientific studies, yet if we require fleets to submit such studies to ascertain if the seabed is vulnerable or not, let us then be reasonable ourselves! Let us not then talk about 1 000 metres.
If there are vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems, they may lie at 800 or 1 200 metres, but the studies we are making fleets submit in order to obtain fishing licences will show this: it is as simple as that and therefore I believe that it is a question of being reasonable on this matter.
To conclude, just one last reference to the importance of this matter: it is said that we know more about the surface of the moon than we know about the deep seabed and for that reason here in this Chamber we shall be pushing ourselves as individuals to help in discovering more about the deep seabed."@en1
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