Mr President, I hope not to take up my five minutes, but I am not very good at controlling myself in this regard. In any event, I would like to apologise to the members of the Committee on Fisheries because my speech is going to consist not so much of comments on the final result of the report – and I would like to stress that I have not presented any amendment to the final result of the vote in the Committee on Fisheries – but rather on the Commission’s proposal. We are dealing with a proposal which presents various problems – several in my opinion – in terms of the lack of compatibility with the Treaties and elements of legislation. It is true that fish populations are experiencing difficulties and that it is necessary to adopt urgent measures. It is true that fishing should be sustainable and to this end it is necessary to preserve fish populations, obviously, but in the two-word term ‘sustainable development’, the two words are not dissociable and there must therefore be a balance: there must be fishermen and there must be regeneration of fish stocks. But it does not make any sense to talk about sustainable development, if we dissociate the two words. I have the impression in this regard that the Commission is proposing an approach which prioritises, or basically only takes into account, the issue of the rapid regeneration of stocks and ignores the other facet of sustainable development. Its approach therefore, in my view, implies a greater social impact on populations dependent on fishing, which may lead to far-reaching structural changes. Effectively, only the larger scale sections of the fleet would survive and the small-scale fleet, which generates most employment, would be heading for extinction. Therefore, the management and the recovery of stocks should take account of the social and economic impact of recovery plans. To this end it would be necessary, firstly, to improve the quality of scientific information and, furthermore, to introduce economic and social elements into the drawing up of recovery plans. Only in this way, by adapting the speed of recovery of fish stocks, can we modulate and minimise the impact on the populations dependent on fishing. And I believe that the Commission has not been careful and my interpretation is that there has been an implicit weakening in its proposal by not wanting to strengthen the Technical and Scientific Committee on Fisheries which I personally believe should be strengthened. And naturally the focus of the multi-annual plans should be multi-specific, taking account of the relationship between species within populations, and plans involving just one species should be the exception in very serious circumstances. In some respects the Commission’s proposal implies a de-communitisation of the fisheries policy, or at least that is how it appears to me. For example, it is proposed to empower the Member States to adopt emergency measures in fields of Community competence or in fields where there is already a Community mechanism in place. The Commission has presented two difficult, complex and very restrictive proposals on, for example, cod fishing. I will take this opportunity to make the following very personal comment, which is perhaps my observation on what I have heard during this debate. It is clear that there is a reduction in stocks going on. Furthermore, and this is very serious, the destruction of jobs has been much greater than that of resources, and this has happened in all the States of the European Union despite the exceptions, the protection measures and discriminations, some relating to access. I, who have not been excessively belligerent on this issue, am making this comment because now it is surely going to be necessary – let us pray that we can prevent the worst repercussions – to take tough measures which are always going to have most impact on the small-scale fleet. This perfectly illustrates the need to change the approach of the common fisheries policy, because I believe that it is not the States but the fishermen who fish and it is necessary to adopt measures to safeguard the activity of the most sensitive sections of the fleet, of whatever nationality. And, although I imagine that this is an issue for the future, I believe that in terms of the allocation of catch quotas by type of fish and sections of the fleet, if we want to preserve the fishing regions and the sections of the fleet which create a lot of employment, we are surely missing a unique opportunity, perhaps allowing ourselves to be carried away by too many individual interests, which the Commission to a certain extent has encouraged. I will not comment on other Commission aspects. I would like to thank my fellow Members for the debate, the President, Mr Stevenson, for handling this whole difficult issue, and express my group’s support for Mr Varela’s report.

Political group: GUE-NGL