Mr President, in my view, the common fisheries policy is essentially a collection of regulations with which all parties must comply. Let us imagine a chess match in which a player moves his bishops diagonally – as the rules dictate – but uses his knights as if they were rooks and in which, furthermore, he tries to carry on playing after he has suffered a checkmate. Let us imagine, also, that the match referee is looking in the other direction. That seems to me to be basically what the last Commission did. We trust that the current Commission will fulfil its mission as a guardian of the Treaties and that it does not ‘let so many goals in’. The preservation of fishing resources depends, rightly, on respect for the agreements on TACs and quotas, temporary fishing bans and commitments made by Member States on the reduction of their fleets, and, as such, if, from this delicate house of cards which we are all building, someone were to remove a card, the whole construction would collapse. Compliance with the MAGPs is an essential requirement if we are to safeguard the balance between resources and fleet capacity. The degree of compliance amongst the Member States with their obligations, laid down in the MAGPs, varies enormously, as this report demonstrates. This report indicates countries which, through great economic and social effort, and with enormous effort on the part of their fishing fleets and their people, have complied fully. This is recognised by the Commission and Mr Cunha in his report. Mr Cunha, who I congratulate on his excellent report, also indicates the degree to which some Member States do not comply and the clear lack of will of certain other countries who, furthermore, refuse to provide reliable data. As the rapporteur has explained so well, it is incredible that the Commission has shown so much tolerance towards a country which, for so many years, has failed to provide reliable information on the situation of its fleet. This has probably been possible as the result of the political weakness of the previous Commission. I would also like to refer to other reasons which are the responsibility of the Commission and the Member States, because it is necessary, in this new stage, for them both to make an effort to harmonise the reference criteria in force for measuring the tonnage and power of vessels. This is the only way we can prevent some countries from out-manoeuvring the regulations, which is what some are currently doing. The Commission will also – as Mr Cunha says in his report – have to be stricter with regard to the segmentation criteria of the different national fleets, improve the definition of geographical areas and use its power to impose penalties, although of a temporary nature, to oblige States to fulfil their obligations with regard to reducing fleet sizes. We s demand that the Commission make a commitment, here in this Parliament, to put an end, not only to its tolerance of non-compliance with the MAGPs, but also to the lack of transparency of certain States whose attitude simply prejudices those other countries who are eager to fulfil all the objectives laid down in the MAGPs. In the exercise of its competences, the Commission must protect the Community interest.

Political group: PSE