Mr President, on many occasions I, like many other of my fellow members, have lamented the lack of coordination between different Community policies and between the various Directorates-General of the Commission. I could even say the same for the Parliamentary Committees in this House. There would be no contradictions between the common fisheries policy (CFP) and the development cooperation policy if Community instruments – the budget, to be precise – were more transparent. The European Union funds cooperation in fisheries with these countries in two different ways: international fisheries agreements and projects funded by the European Development Fund. An increasingly large proportion of financial compensation from the agreements is for this purpose – with regard to Madagascar, for example, it is 62% – which is not, of course, the ideal situation, given that the CFP is being asked to fund actions or compensations that have nothing to do with its real objectives. Those who say that the Community does not help the fisheries sector of developing countries are wrong. In response to a question I asked recently, Commissioner Nielson informed me that the Community had undertaken, with funding of EUR 421 million from the European Development Fund, 334 programmes, projects or actions to support the fisheries sector in these countries. I would remind you that the largest current fisheries agreement, the agreement with Mauritania, involves around EUR 80 million per year. I think that nothing could be of more use to the progress of developing countries than mutual trade with the European Union. Fisheries agreements allow them to obtain financial resources in return for giving the Community fleet fishing rights on various perishable resources whose capture, processing and marketing, require specialist companies and methods that these countries do not have themselves. In the same way that it would be absurd for us to oppose these countries’ exporting their agricultural products to Europe, it would be appalling if we were to deny them the opportunity of selling their surplus fish supplies at international prices. This ill-informed approach to development cooperation would lead us to prevent developing countries from exporting their mining products to us, or to ask European energy companies to abandon these countries so that local companies can carry out operations, or to not pay Gabon or Nigeria the international price for a barrel of oil. Lastly, it is worth pointing out that the fishing grounds where the Community fleet operate are in international waters that do not belong to any one country, but are in Exclusive Economic Zones, according to the International Law of the Sea Treaty, that obliges all countries to leave the surplus resources from these zones that they cannot exploit themselves for other countries to use. This should take place within the framework of the sustainable management of resources, which is what the CFP is designed to achieve. The fishing carried out by the Community fleet that operates in these waters is compatible with the local small-scale fleet, which maintains the monopoly within a 12-mile zone. An interesting project for all those involved would be to help those countries to better manage this zone where spawning takes place and where the highest concentration of young fish is to be found. I congratulate Mr Lannoye on his excellent report and I ask everyone here to continue working on this cooperative approach.

Political group: PSE