Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-20-Speech-1-210"
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"en.20081020.18.1-210"2
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"Mr President, I have to commend my good friend Niels Busk for his brave attempt at yet another cod recovery plan. Ever since I was elected in 1999, we have had a cod recovery plan every year.
Every cod recovery plan introduces even tougher regulations and even tougher draconian measures. Because we are dealing with a mixed fishery where the cod is caught together with prawns, whiting and haddock, we have all these discard problems that we have just heard Jim Allister talking about. I am afraid that I feel in this case that Mr Busk is emulating his famous Danish forbear, King Canute, who was King of Denmark and England in the 10th century and famously sat on his throne at the seaside and ordered the tide not to come in. Of course, history records that he got very wet and narrowly avoided drowning. Trying to introduce a cod recovery plan – a management plan that will help cod recover – is, in fact, trying to defy nature in the same way. We know that climate change has caused the North Sea to warm up by one and a half degrees and the fighter plankton that the cod larvae feed on have moved hundreds of miles north, which is why most of the big mature cod that we buy in the shops anywhere in Europe comes from around Norway, the Faroes and Iceland. So until the North Sea cools down again, you are not going to see the cod recovering, and all the tough management plans that we want to introduce will not make any difference.
I am delighted, in that case, that I have heard the Commissioner this evening say that he accepts my amendment that will at least look at the impact of climate change on cod recovery, as well as looking at the impact on cod predation by seals. We now have 170 000 grey seals in the North Sea, each one eating two tons of fish a year – including a lot of cod – and previously it was not PC to speak about seals in any shape or form. So at least looking at the impact seals have on the cod population is, I think, a very important step this evening. I commend King Canute to the House and hope that his report is accepted."@en1
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