Mr President, the Protocol that is today submitted for our approval, between the European Union and the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros originates in the initial 1988 agreement and refers to the fifth period of this agreement; in other words, this is the fourth time the initial agreement has been renewed. The agreement we are going to vote on today retains a line of continuity from the previous one, while the philosophy behind it also bears similarities to most of the agreements of this kind that the European Union has signed. The present agreement, which as I have said retains a line of continuity from the previous one, introduces only some slight quantitative changes to the number of vessels authorised to fish and to the volume of catches, and also some changes – slight as to the amount involved but appreciable in structural terms – to the financial contribution made by the Union and the companies that will benefit from the agreement. The authorised catch volume is set at 4 600 tonnes, slightly above the previous agreement’s 4 500 tonnes but quite a long way below the historical levels of 1988 to 1994 of 6 000 tonnes. The number of vessels authorised to fish is set at 65: 40 tuna seiners and 25 surface longliners. There is an increase in the overall number of vessels, which goes up from 60 to 65. Of these, the tuna seiners correspond to the following countries: France, 21; Spain, 18; Italy, 1. As for the surface longliners, most are Spanish with a few from Portugal. It should be noted that although the total number of vessels has risen, the number of tuna seiners, which are the ones that catch the greatest tonnage, has gone down from 44 to 40 and the number of longliners has risen from 16 to 25. These figures in fact reflect the utilisation levels achieved in practice during the time the previous agreement was in force, which were 75 to 80% for tuna seiners and over 90% for longliners, which are precisely those that have now been increased in number. Turning now to the financial contribution, this is set at just over EUR one million: EUR 1 050 750, to be precise, or the equivalent of EUR 350 000 for each year the agreement lasts. The main change in this section concerns the structure of this financial contribution. Whereas in the previous agreement it was split 50-50 between funds allocated for compensation and those intended for targeted measures; that is, support measures for development of the local fishing sector, technical programmes, etc. Under the new agreement, however, the funds allocated to these targeted measures make up 60% of the financial contribution. That means there is greater effort, so to say, in the development contribution to the detriment of the purely commercial aspects. The cost distribution of the agreement is also changed. The Community budget appropriation is cut by 2.7% and in exchange the shipowners’ contributions are raised by 35%. In real terms, the rate per tonne of catch goes up from EUR 20 to EUR 25. This is a fair and balanced agreement, which brings together the various interests, and the various elements that are inevitably involved in this type of agreement. That means first of all the interests of the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros, the interests of the European Union, the interests of the companies that will benefit from the agreement, and last but, of course, not least the resource conservation aspect. It is, as I say, a fair and balanced agreement, which has been passed by a very large majority in the committee and which I now ask this House to vote for.

Political group: PSE