Mr President, this year we once again have before us a Commission report on the Member States’ compliance with the measures relating to the restructuring of the fleet, adopted in 1997. It once more beggars belief that the Commission has been able to draw up a report with the jumble of information sent to it by some Member States which, in our opinion, makes it a practically useless document. The Commission report indicates four modes of behaviour on the part of Member States with regard to their obligations to comply with the Multiannual Guidance Programmes (MAGPs). A few, incidentally, as well as complying with the global objectives for restructuring the fleet, send harmonised data – as Community regulations require. Others, the majority, continue to send data mixing up the GTs and the GRTs, which makes it very difficult to measure their degree of compliance with regard to the reduction in tonnage. A third group consists of two Member States who do not comply with the global objectives of the MAGPs at all. Lastly, a third Member State sends no data whatsoever and has failed to do so for three years. This constitutes an intolerable form of discrimination, not only amongst countries which comply with their global objectives at the expense of imposing great sacrifices on their fleets, but also amongst those which, while not complying with them, at least respect their obligation to publicise their data, as a result of which they are penalised for the fact that that data is not in compliance. The same does not happen with a Member State which, ignoring all relevant Community regulations, has withheld its data for three consecutive years and therefore, since this data is not available, cannot even be penalised. This is such a travesty that only through a great sense of responsibility will we be able to persuade the compliant States to continue to adapt their fleets to existing resources and not the opposite. The sad result is that we continue to impose these obligations while not really knowing, at the moment, how many vessels the Community fleet consists of and, less still, its tonnage. In this regard, the Commission has made it known that a study by experts will be available next month on the sizes of the fleets in all Member States, apart from one, and I would like to know whether that is the usual one. Does that mean that, next year and in subsequent years, Mr Cunha will have to return to present us with another of his excellent reports on the evaluation of the degree of compliance with the MAGPs, warning of the danger caused by some Member States who continue to believe that the safeguarding of Community resources is someone else’s problem? Mr President, this situation has to end. Therefore, for very good reasons, our rapporteur is calling for penalties, in the form of reductions in fishing quotas, not only for those who do not comply, but also for those who hide the facts and commit fraud. It is clear that the penalties contained in the new FIFG are a step forward, but they are not sufficient to prevent a situation of non-compliance which has already been going on for too long. We therefore support the rapporteur’s demand for measures which will act as a genuine deterrent and we consider, given what some people think, that this type of penalty is totally appropriate: firstly, because the situation has reached the point where we have to strike where it hurts most; secondly, because, although quotas are not included in structural policy, non-compliance with the MAGPs threatens resources. The protection of resources is the ultimate aim of the common fisheries policy. Mr President, after what has happened this morning, I would like to say one thing: while I have always been convinced by the quality of Mr Cunha’s reports and proposals on this subject, this time I am even more convinced, and I believe that he really has put his finger on the problem. I would like the other two institutions, which have to adopt resolutions on the subject, to realise that the application of effective penalties could really resolve the problem of excess fleet which the Community is currently suffering and thereby protect our resources and, above all, our fishermen.

Political group: PPE-DE