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24 February, 2010
NEW access rules and individual transferable quotas could
leave Spanish fishermen in control of the North Sea catch,
Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson has warned.
The European Commission will today (Wednesday) debate 139
proposed amendments to the green paper on reform of the
Common Fisheries Policy during a special plenary session in
Brussels.
Mr Stevenson, senior vice president of the European
Parliament’s fisheries committee, said the proposals could
transfer traditional Scottish fishing rights to wealthy
foreign companies.
He is particularly concerned about one amendment
specifically, which states that "access to fish stocks
should no longer be based solely on the criterion of
historical catches."
"I believe that this is a potentially explosive alteration
to the current rules which allocates fishing rights based on
historical track records, providing evidence that
generations of Scottish fishermen have fished in a
particular area,” the MEP said.
"If this rule is changed, Spanish fishermen could argue that
they have equal access rights to our traditional fishing
grounds in the North Sea and west of Scotland." |
A similar risk is posed by
the suggestion that individual transferable quotas (ITQs)
are introduced, he said.
"If a system of ITQs is introduced, we can expect the same
situation to occur that we witnessed in Iceland where a
handful of wealthy fishing companies quickly seized control
of all of the available whitefish quotas, forcing many small
fishing companies out of business.
"Once again I fear that the combination of new access rules,
together with ITQs, will simply enable wealthy Spanish
fishing concerns to buy up most of our Scottish whitefish
quotas, leaving the Spanish fleet in control of the North
Sea.”
He said the impact would be disastrous for fishermen and
potentially for Scottish ports of crews decided to land
their catches on the continent rather than locally.
"While I am all for reforming the CFP, which has been a
catastrophe for our fishing sector since its inception, I am
determined to ensure that we don't open the door to a
bargain basement sale of Scotland's fishing heritage.
"I will be putting down a series of amendments which seek to
protect our industry and I will be looking to get the
majority of MEPs to support me in the votes."
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