Mr President, following the failure of the EU to renew a fisheries agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco, it became clear that there would be massive socio-economic impacts within the Community. The previous agreement with Morocco expired in November 1999. At that time, this had been the biggest international agreement between the Community and any third country. A great many EU vessels and jobs relied upon it, primarily in Spain but also in Portugal. In the absence of a new agreement, a significant number of Community vessels from Galicia, Andalucia and Portugal that operated within this framework were forced to stop their fishing activities. Recognising the difficulties caused by the lack of any new fisheries agreement, the Community agreed to set aside over EUR 190 million to promote the conversion of fishing vessels that had operated in Moroccan waters. 94.6% of this money was set aside for Spain, and the rest for Portugal. However, when the Prestige disaster occurred last November and the shores of Galicia were covered in layers of black oil, we began to search for emergency aid to alleviate the catastrophic suffering of the fishing communities in this region. We discovered that EUR 30 million of the money set aside to deal with the Moroccan problem was, at that point, still unspent. The European Parliament therefore agreed at its plenary session in December 2002 that we should immediately re-programme this money to help with the Prestige disaster in Galicia. Nevertheless, the fact that the Moroccan fund had been underspent raised some important questions. At a meeting of the Committee on Fisheries in February 2003, representatives of the industry and of the Andalucian regional government described the problems they encountered in the implementation of this Regulation. It quickly became clear that the criteria according to which fishermen could claim this aid was far too complex and had proven to be so rigid that very few fisherman had in fact managed to benefit from any of this money. Industry representatives told our Committee that potential beneficiaries are losing out on compensation measures due to overly stringent Commission deadlines and rules. For example, public aid is granted only to fishermen who have undertaken to scrap vessels, change the purpose of their vessels, or agreed to the permanent transfer of a vessel to a third country through joint venture agreements. In particular, crew members who have lost their jobs cannot apply for the individual premium of EUR 12 000 unless the owner decides to transfer or scrap the vessel. This means that many fishermen living in the regions which were affected by the failure of the Morocco agreement have still not received any financial help. I need hardly remind the House that in our March 2003 plenary session in Strasbourg two weeks ago, by an overwhelming majority of 507 votes in favour to 6 votes against, the European Parliament supported a resolution proposing EUR 150 million to be paid as compensation to fisherman affected by the draconian cod recovery measures now in place in the Irish Sea and the North Sea. I know that we are still negotiating with the Commission and the Council as to where this emergency aid might come from, but I trust that we are simply not going to repeat the mistakes that were made with the Moroccan fund. We must ensure that in future when we identify the need for urgent aid to the fisheries sector, it is delivered in a way that is both fairly targeted and quickly completed. Let us make sure that there is a minimum of red tape and a minimum of bureaucracy. I just returned this afternoon from Galicia where I attended meetings and site visits with members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism to see for ourselves the clean-up operation in the wake of the Prestige disaster. We heard all too vividly the desperate plight of the fishing communities who had been forced to tie up their boats, through no fault of their own, since last November. Despite the fact that this House agreed to re-programme EUR 30 million last December, none of that money has so far been released. Why not? Who is working on the details of this aid package? Where are the log jams? Let us cut the red tape and get the aid moving! Let us learn from these lessons that have been identified under the Morocco agreement and get things right in the future.

Political group: PPE-DE