Mr President, it has been brought to my attention that Mr Hudghton raised a point of order earlier today in this Chamber under Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure. He referred to a debate in the Scottish Parliament and a statement by a Conservative Member of that Parliament to the affect that it is incumbent on me, as Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, to represent the views of the UK Government. Firstly, may I say that I cannot answer for statements made by members of other parliaments, whoever or wherever they may be. Secondly, in view of the fact that the UK Government is a Labour government, and I am a Conservative, it would be rather strange, to say the least, if I felt obliged to represent their views either in my capacity as Chairman of the Fisheries Committee or indeed in any other role. Mr Hudghton seems unusually exercised by my role as Fisheries Committee Chairman these days. It is a great pity that he chooses to divert his energies into cheap, political point-scoring, rather than standing up for Scotland's beleaguered fishing industry. However, he may rest assured that I conduct my role as Chairman of the Fisheries Committee in an even-handed and democratic manner. Turning to the Cunha report, may I firstly place on record, as Mr Fischler and Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna have done before me, the great appreciation of the members of the Fisheries Committee and indeed of most if not all of the Members of this House for the work undertaken by Mr Cunha during his term of office as an MEP representing Portugal. He has now, of course, returned to Portugal to take up a very senior position and we all wish him well for the future. I am sure that we will see more of him in the days to come. The high quality of the work undertaken by Mr Cunha has indeed been reflected in this report on an integrated framework for fisheries partnership agreements with third countries. Many people are currently expressing anxiety over international fisheries agreements entered into between the EU and these third countries. Documentary film-makers and indeed some international NGOs have beaten a path to countries like Senegal and Mauritania in West Africa, intent on exposing the ravages of greedy European fishermen. Against a background of collapsing fish stocks in EU waters, due, allegedly, to massive over-fishing, these critics claim that Europe is now hell-bent on exporting its problems to these developing nations. Other critics point the finger at the ubiquitous Spanish and French fleets, claiming that such third country agreements, although funded by the EU, are only of benefit to Spain and France. It is time to set the record straight, and the Cunha report sets out to do this. Firstly, we should explore why the EU finds it necessary to enter into such agreements for international fishing rights. When Spain joined the EU it brought with it a distant water fleet of heavy trawlers, which had plied the world's oceans for centuries. Having only a narrow continental shelf and with limited fisheries resources of their own, Basque and Galician fishermen were catching cod off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador five hundred years before Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America. France has a similar tradition. However, just as fast as EU fish stocks are collapsing, stocks of migrating fish are being savagely cut as a result of the new regulations that we are imposing through the common fisheries policy. At the same time, consumer demand for fish in the EU is rising. We are now only 60% self-sufficient in meeting this demand. Consumers are turning away from red meats because of fears about BSE, foot-and-mouth and other scare stories, and are turning to fish as a healthy alternative. To meet this surging demand, the EU has two alternatives. Either it can import fish from outside the Community, increasing our balance of trade deficit and exporting valuable fishing jobs, or we can harness the expertise of the Community's distant water fleet which may well be largely Spanish and French, thus maintaining EU employment in the fisheries sector while, at the same time, ensuring that EU hygiene and food safety standards are maintained. The choice is not difficult. Nevertheless, while contracts entered into with third countries have seen EU trawlers from Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland and, to a lesser extent Greece and the UK, deployed around the globe from the Southern Oceans to the North Pole, there has been rising concern at the exploitative nature of some of these agreements. In Mauritania, off the West Coast of Africa, it was claimed that Spanish trawlers were hoovering up thousands of tonnes of fish, depleting local stocks, driving native fishermen out of work and causing famine amongst the coastal communities. That is why the EU had to develop a new system for drawing up these agreements. In future, third country agreements must be a partnership between the EU and the contracting nation, embracing a continuous monitoring process to ensure that a sustainable fishery is maintained. We want a significant proportion of the contract price to be devoted to buying fishing rights. But, and this is equally as important, we also want a significant contribution to be devoted to conservation and development objectives, with monitoring and surveillance high on the list. The EU has recognised its responsibility to the countries with whom we enter into these agreements, while at the same time maintaining its long tradition of distant water fishing to keep a steady supply of good, healthy fish on Europe's tables. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE