WRITTEN QUESTION E-0634/98 by Angela Sierra González (GUE/NGL) to the Commission (9 March 1998)

Subject: Parlevilet company installation in Puerto de Las Palmas

Various social groups - including fishermen's associations, sardine canners, cold-storage operators and Greenpeace - have made public their opposition to the installation of a refrigeration plant with an overall capacity of 200 000 cubic metres by the Dutch concern Parlevilet in Puerto de la Luz y de Las Palmas (Canary Islands).

The above-mentioned groups' concerns centre around the company's apparent intention to turn Puerto de la Luz into a base for twenty-one midwater freezer trawlers with a gross registered tonnage exceeding two thousand tonnes. Were the fleet indeed to set up base there and enter Western Saharan fishing grounds, the sustainability of those fishing grounds would be seriously jeopardized, since its presence would serve to deplete stocks of mid-water fish in those areas in which it operated and, moreover, have an irreversible effect upon the local tuna-fish stocks, upon which much of the non-industrial fishing community in the Canary Islands depends.

Furthermore, doubts have been expressed as to whether the company's refrigeration plant is necessary at all - it would appear that the company has benefited from considerable aid from the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG), provided by the office of the junior minister for fisheries in the Canary Islands' regional government - given that existing refrigeration facilities in Puerto de la Luz are running at only 40 per cent capacity.

Is the Commission aware of the proposed setting up of a 'European midwater fish consortium' in Puerto de la Luz y de Las Palmas?

Does the Commission take the view that the presence of this trawler fleet in Western Saharan fishing grounds might pose a threat to the non-industrial fishing fleet based in ports in the Canary Islands and to the sustainability of fishing grounds in that area?

Does the Commission consider that the possible granting of FIFG aid in setting up this refrigeration plant is compatible with the aims of the Instrument and of the operational programme for Community structural intervention in fisheries, aquaculture and the processing and marketing of fishery products in Objective 1 regions in Spain?

Answer given by Mrs Bonino on behalf of the Commission (20 April 1998)

The Commission has noted the planned investment at the port of Las Palmas in the installation of cold-storage and handling facilities for fishery products which will enable vessels from the Netherlands pelagic fleet operating in the waters of the coastal states of West Africa to use Las Palmas as their home port and the cold stores as the hub of their operations to market pelagic species in Africa.

Vessels from the Netherlands pelagic fleet fishing under the Agreement between the Community and Mauritania are obliged to comply with the rules laid down in that Agreement for this type of fishing. The Commission monitors these fishing operations through the application of the Fisheries Agreement and has no evidence to suggest that they could be prejudicial to the small-scale fishing fleet based in the ports of the Canary Islands.

The project may be eligible for aid from the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG). Nevertheless, it is up to the authorities of the Member State to select projects for part-financing from the FIFG and therefore to evaluate the technical viability and the economic and social consequences of this project.