Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-17-Speech-1-147-000"
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"en.20110117.17.1-147-000"2
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"Mr President, I will be brief. I find myself almost, indeed entirely, in agreement with the Commissioner on this subject.
Firstly, to repeat, it is important that we sign the interim EPA because, if we do not, existing trade preferences for Papua New Guinea and Fiji will disappear, under the WTO ruling. The interim EPA is precisely that: it is an interim arrangement, and I agree with all the colleagues who say that our objective in the long run should be a full, comprehensive EPA with all the Pacific countries, encouraging regional integration in the Pacific. But we have to take this step at the moment to ensure the continuation of preferences for the two largest countries in the Pacific region.
On fishing, the Commission has made it very clear that what we have here is an exception. This will be the only derogation. There are no other parts of the world to which we intend giving such a derogation. Why are we giving a derogation to Papua New Guinea? I will tell you: it is because Papua New Guinea is literally on the other side of the world, and the likelihood of EU fishing fleets exploiting that area extensively is limited, although they are free to do so. There is nothing to stop EU fishing fleets fishing in Papua New Guinea waters and landing their catch and getting their catch canned in Papua New Guinea – and, as has been said earlier, that would be very good for development, and indeed we should encourage it.
But the situation at present is that Chinese boats, Thai boats and boats of other Asian nationalities are fishing in Papua New Guinea’s waters and landing their fish back in their own country, giving no opportunity for development in Papua New Guinea.
There is a development opportunity here in terms of providing jobs, particularly for women. We often complain that we do not do enough in our development policy to encourage downstream activity. Here, we are actually doing something positive for downstream activity. As the Commissioner has said, in order to qualify, the fish still needs to meet all the standards under the regulation on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. It has to meet all our sanitary and phytosanitary conditions. That is absolutely essential. The three factories in Papua New Guinea meet these standards at the moment and are providing useful jobs. If we have a sudden increase in the number of factories, and a sudden surge in imports from Papua New Guinea, then, of course, we will have to revisit the situation and potentially take action.
At the moment, however, the statistics speak for themselves. This agreement has been in place since 2008. There has been no surge. There is no threat to the European tuna industry. I have met, as rapporteur, with the leaders of the Spanish tuna industry and they themselves have said to me that there is no current threat. What they are worried about is the future. They accept that at the moment, there is no serious threat to the EU industry. So let us not exaggerate the situation. Let us not make a poor developing country pay for our preoccupation with our own self-interest."@en1
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