Mr President, I thank Mr Fischler for having come before this House. He is here because, at the Conference of Presidents, the Group of the asked him to come. May I remind you, Commissioner, that in October 1999, a month before the agreement expired, you said here that you “would do everything in your power to find a solution” and that you “would get your feet wet”. Fourteen months later it is the Community fleet that is getting wet, but the water is up to its neck. But I am not one to blame you. I believe you have done what it was within your power to do, which really was very little. The problem for me is that there has not been a concerted effort by the various Commission services, and there has not been enough political pressure from the Council, and what is worse, in my opinion, is that there has been no clear thinking, skill or hard work in parallel by the government of the country most affected. Mr Varela, I believe Mr Prodi’s visit – which I think was very positive – rather than reassuring the sector has made it more worried, precisely because of the moment in the process when it took place. Such are the doubts and vacillations that the sector feels at the moment. The sector keeps on repeating that it does not want an agreement at just any price, and it is afraid that an agreement will be signed just to save face. The sector says that what the Moroccans are offering – the technical conditions that they want the Community fleet to submit to – is unacceptable, and there are a number of limitations on freezer trawlers and shrimp vessels that are unacceptable. I think the Moroccan authorities need a clear message from the Union. The Union would like to have fair cooperation with its partners, and now we all realise that we would have gained a lot if the Moroccan Government had responded in time to Community appeals. It is unacceptable that for 14 months the Moroccan Government repeated that it did not want an agreement, and now they are trying to blame you, Mr Fischler, for the failure to conclude one and for the negotiations having broken down. The result will be that the next Austrians – like yourself – or Swedes who negotiate in Rabat will think that what the Moroccans want is exactly the opposite of what they are thinking or saying. This whole absurd process, which has been going on now for 14 months, is not having any positive effects for one simple reason: because in certain sectors in the Union it is generating a rejection of the European Union itself. Here we spend days on end discussing the Union’s democratic deficit and good governance, and then, when we have a subject on our hands that directly affects more than 4 000 fishermen, we pretend not to see what is obvious and not to do what any government would do to stand up for such an important part of its productive fabric. There are some who say that President Prodi should have blocked not just fisheries cooperation but the whole MEDA II programme. With regard to the Poignant and Gallagher reports, which bring forward many points for debate on the forthcoming reform of the CFP, I think that if a number of amendments are approved we shall be able to achieve two balanced resolutions and correct some contradictions. But a balanced agreement – such as the one we should reach on the Green Paper – does not mean that it is a compromise between various extreme positions but rather a coherent report endorsing the future of the whole sector and the viability of fishing as an economic activity throughout the European Union. The balance that we s desire can only be achieved through a fisheries policy based on scientific criteria and adapted to the market, with the suppression of the political discrimination that still persists. The reform process must be participatory, in the words of Mr Poignant, whom I congratulate on his work, performed under difficult conditions. His report reveals many of the problems that we are going to have to discuss during the process of reforming the common fisheries policy. He has supplied many solutions, for instance the socio-economic aspect of fishing, the development of the social aspects of the CFP, and the updating of criteria that define regions as fishery-dependent. The Gallagher report is also interesting in that it refers to social aspects or regards agreements with third countries as a fundamental part of the CFP. We are requesting clear legal and scientific opinions on access restrictions. We believe that the reform of the CFP should not contain any discriminatory element whether political or based on nationality. Our amendments support keeping the current 6/12 mile zone. Lastly, I should like to congratulate Mr Varela – and also Mr Cunha – for the excellent report on the challenge of globalisation and the dangers that certain aspects of it pose for the Community fisheries sector. The international side of the CFP, our ever more necessary participation in multilateral organisations, is a challenge that still awaits us. This question is going to return and be debated many more times in this House. I congratulate Mr Varela on his political foresight, which could almost be called poetic.

Political group: PSE