Mr President, I still have my doubts as to the methods used, especially in Mr Poignant’s report, and I still believe that the opinions of the fisheries sector expressed at the regional meetings deserve a more thorough examination. In addition, Mr Gallagher and Mr Poignant have presented views in many cases contrary to the measures that the CFP should contain. We cannot fail to recognise the effort that has been made a posteriori to try to unify viewpoints, but the European People’s Party believes that in some fundamental areas there are still some clear contradictions. We have therefore tabled a series of amendments above all to try to eliminate the impression that Parliament does not have a definite attitude towards the future of the CFP, because that is not the case. It may be that we do not agree on specific measures, but if something comes out of these reports it is that Parliament is in total agreement with the fisheries sector in that the CFP requires some fundamental changes. I therefore ask for our amendments to be approved, because far from entering yet again into sterile discussions they reflect this desire for change and the need for careful thinking about the fisheries policy, with our sights set on the future and not the past. If there were no clear need for this, the Council of Ministers last month would have given some indication that this were the case. Things cannot go on like this. The fundamental flaws that have encumbered the CFP since the beginning have to be paid for by the industry at the end of every year with a series of increasingly brutal cuts to its operations. When you come to the extremes that have been reached this year, you have to wonder what economic sector could survive with these rules of play. If resource levels are getting worse and worse, it is because a sequence of failures in the policy that governs fishing not only allows it to happen but actually causes it. A sector constrained by a series of outdated, contradictory and often incomprehensible rules can only have very limited responsibility in this state of things, and yet it alone has to pay the price. The CFP is in need of very far-reaching changes that will provide solutions for a fishing industry which, unlike the rules which govern it and even despite them, has managed to survive and has done everything it can to evolve and continue to provide coastal regions with wealth and jobs. That is why I must again stress that, when there is evident dissatisfaction with the resources policy, the brilliant results of which we have just seen yet again at December’s Council meeting, with a TAC system that encourages discards, when issues such as relative stability and freedom of access have yet to be resolved, not to mention the matter of bringing the only Community policy that still discriminates on grounds of nationality into line with the Treaties, the Commission cannot seriously propose a draft Green Paper like the one it has drawn up. If the Commission really believes that the future of European fisheries depends not on the simple modification of a regulation, but on the proposal of measures already contained in current regulations, if the Commission’s great proposal and great discovery for the future CFP is to be multiannual TACs and the encouragement of aquaculture, perhaps the moment has come, Mr President, to ask in all seriousness for it to make room for other people who can bring in new ideas and the tiniest sense of responsibility.

Political group: PPE-DE