Mr President, this is an important subject. It is highly technical and not easily understood by the public. A gradual improvement in the regulations will contribute in the long term to the future health of the marine environment for the generations that will come after us. We can improve our resources. We are not self-sufficient in fish in the Union, only 50% self-sufficient. With good conservation and better practices, we could give a better living to more people involved in fishing. We could increase by something like EUR 4 000 million the value of the fish landed in the European Union if we could apply a little bit more care over a period of time to our fishing activities. This is highly technical. It is important that we do the research, keep up the revision and gradually convince people that the European Commission is not a hostile organisation sent from afar to persecute fishermen and prevent them from making a living. We should not use occasions like this to make inflammatory statements about the necessity of reducing the size of fleets that are involved, because of the reduction in stocks, because of the high price of fish arising out of its scarcity in the European Union and the attraction of this type of food for health reasons. There is a great urge to go out and catch more and more of it. People complain about the Multi-Annual Guidance Programme and say it is not working. Surely, a transport manager will not want to keep ten buses on the road if one bus will transport the passengers available. The same applies to trains or trucks. So why do we get this pressure from the fishing communities to maintain large expensive fleets if, in fact, the fish are not there and we are bound by quotas? If the quotas are being observed, surely it is in the interest of the fishing communities of the regions and the individuals involved to go out and catch these fish with the smallest possible number of fishing vessels. Surely it contributes more to regional and national economic planning to do that. Do not swallow this foolish talk that we want to keep boats and that somehow or other this will keep people in jobs if the fish are not there. There were banner headlines just because the Commission published, a few days ago, a report which indicated that some fleets would have to be reduced. Those reports spread over from Scotland to Ireland and the papers were full of massive reductions in the number of people employed. There is no need for it. Let us sit down, come to the Fisheries Committee, listen to the officials, listen to the researchers and work out a sensible solution to the problems instead of trying to create an atmosphere of hostility. We have one programme broadcast in Ireland that deals with the sea. It is called 'Seascapes'. The night before we had the Maastricht Referendum, they upped their tone and the temperature of their anti-European broadcasting, which goes on continuously, in an effort to ingratiate themselves with fishing communities who have the impression that somehow or another the European Commission is there to damage their interests. Let us, as responsible public representatives, try to present the truth to our people instead of trying to mislead them and excite them and frighten them.

Political group: PPE-DE