12 April, 2008

FAROE has pledged to help the SNP run Scottish Government scrap the Common Fisheries Policy, according to Euro MP Alyn Smith.

The SNP MEP, who has just returned from a climate change conference in Faroe led by Al “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore, said Faroe’s foreign minister Hogni Hoydal was coming to Scotland next month to foster co-operation between the two countries.

Mr Smith said he updated the Faroese on “the efforts of the Scottish Government to work towards scrapping the disastrous EU Common Fisheries Policy and come up with a fisheries management system that works”.

He said he had invited Faroese fisheries minister Torbjorn Jacobsen to come to Scotland for talks with fisheries secretary Richard Lochhead.

“The Faroese have a lot to contribute to discussions on how best to scrap and replace the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy and I’m glad they are so keen to be involved.

“It is so logical that the Scots government reach out to our nearest neighbours with real expertise in fisheries for good ideas, advocacy and support as we fight within the EU to replace the CFP with something that works.

“This trip was the start of a process that I look forward to delivering real results for Scotland’s fishermen and Scotland’s ecosystem.”

In a speech to the conference Mr Smith described the CFP as “a disaster”. He said: “It is anti-fish, anti-environment, anti-fishing communities, anti-European, actually because it brings the entire EU into disrepute and acts as a major block to your, Icelandic and Norwegian membership. And I don’t blame you, only the mad hatter would advise Alice to join this wonderland system.”

He told delegates that Scotland was trying to reform the CFP from within through its Conservation Credits and the Sustainable Seas taskforce, “a small group of experts whose job is to take a fresh sheet of paper and to design the ideal system for fisheries management in Scotland.”