Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Martin on his own-initiative report, and on the quality of his work. He deserves special congratulations because he has succeeded in achieving unanimity within the Committee on Fisheries, and because of the standard of the hearing he so skilfully arranged. In particular, I would like to thank Mr Martin for the speed with which he incorporated into this report the request for ad hoc instrument to be resorted to when environmental disasters occur, regardless of whether they are due to natural causes. The current situation in Galicia following the accident involving the Prestige is a case in point. The aquaculture sector has been hit particularly hard. Aquaculture is an emerging sector within Community fisheries. Consequently, it faces many challenges and uncertainties. It needs Community support to achieve excellence in production, to innovate, and to enable the ventures to become more competitive and to operate in an environmentally friendly manner. Support is also needed to allow these enterprises to promote themselves to consumers and to create jobs in areas where they are most needed. The Community must make progress on denominations of origin for high quality aquaculture products linked to specific localities. A special section on the promotion of this type of product should be added to the FIFG regulations. Amongst other places, members of the Committee on Fisheries visited Scotland and Andalusia. Such visits enabled us to gain first–hand knowledge of the problems of the sector and of its potential. We were in a position to appreciate the difficulties facing producers on site. We met with salmon producers in Scotland and in Ireland, and learnt about their problems. We marvelled at the skills displayed by sturgeon producers in Granada. We realised the significance of the experimental farming of sea bream and bass in former Roman salt pans in the province of Cadiz. We gained an understanding of the marketing problems too. Hence our belief that one of the Community’s priorities must be to identify new high quality species, and add them to the list of preferential species. The development of research at Community level, and the exchange of new practices related to these species and their farming must also be prioritised. The Socialist Group would welcome a directive providing for the regulation of organic aquaculture, and taking account of the crucial factors in this type of production. I have in mind the use of traditional methods, environmental factors, temperatures and the availability of water. Special funding should be made available to assist organic production and the promotion and sale of such products. We urge the Commission to take into account the fact that market saturation is not an issue in connection with the rearing of certain species such as turbot. This is because the farming of this species is a recent innovation, and is only just being developed. We therefore believe the Commission should continue to support the establishment of new facilities for farming such species, and that suitable provision should be made in the regulations governing the use of FIFG funds. The Commission had indeed supported some new facilities for turbot farming. Even so, given the rapid increase in demand and the relative growth of the industry we believe more assistance is called for. Aquaculture is a fisheries sector with great potential. It must receive Community support if it is to develop in an orderly fashion.

Political group: PSE