Mr President, the Group of the would like to congratulate Mrs Attwooll and Mr Busk on their very welcome reports, and also welcomes the two communications presented by the Commission, both concerning control. We should also like to express – and I address this to Mr Fischler as well – our satisfaction with the progress that would be made in the area of inspection and control under the proposal for reform of the CFP adopted by the European Commission. In this regard, we fully agree with the Commission’s view that the current measures for control and compliance with standards have been insufficient to guarantee the establishment of equal conditions throughout the Union, meaning that the credibility of the CFP has been affected. We support the proposal to create a common inspection and control structure, as requested by the European Parliament. This will be a great step towards communitising the common fisheries policy, which we would also like to see reflected in other dimensions of this policy. It will also increase cooperation between national authorities, as demanded by the European Parliament, moving towards a common inspection structure at Community level and adopting uniform standards including on the amount of penalties. This will make it possible to attenuate the current deficiency caused by the lack of human and material resources, which are currently limited to the sporadic control of landings. In addition, there are substantial differences between the inspection methods of each Member State and between the penalties they apply, which leads to ineffective control. We therefore asked, in the resolution on the Green Paper, a report for which I was the rapporteur, for a harmonised European inspection and control system applicable to all professionals, without discrimination, with a uniform system of penalty proceedings and provisions with a high level of compliance in each part of the industry. Without this system, all the efforts towards the conservation of stocks and the rational management of fishing-grounds are destined to fail. The control cannot be effective, however, without cooperation between the Commission and the Member States and unless the latter fulfil their obligation, as Mrs Attwooll said, to notify any infringements that take place in this area. I would therefore ask the Commissioner to tell us, if possible, what action the Commission has taken in response to the non-compliances he describes in his communication with regard to Member States that have failed to comply with the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 2740/1999. I would also ask the Commissioner to tell us whether he has asked France for an explanation as to why it did not provide any information and what the response was. As indicated by Mrs Attwooll, given these gaps it is impossible to come to a firm conclusion. Lastly, we support the petition by my colleague Mr Busk for the Commission to draw up a catalogue of penalties that could be more effective and dissuasive, based on the experiences of the various Member States, that could serve as a guide for everybody. We are sure that an effective, impartial system of homogenous control at European level will increase the support of fishermen for legislation on fisheries and will also increase their respect for it.

Political group: PSE