That may be but, when one goes to Brussels for briefings one is sometimes briefed by officials who are remote from reality. Sometimes one meets the actual officials involved. The fact is that since 2nd June this has been a priority on our part and no Commission official should be unaware of that, if he is in any way involved in the negotiations.
Our position is that we are trying to get across, and this is what we tried to get across at the last council meeting, that there is, first of all, no basis for this concept of right of access in either the Rome Treaty or the Accession Treaty. I shall furnish Deputy O'Kennedy with a copy I made at the last council meeting. I think it is important it should get as much publicity as possible.
This is an issue on which there is a great deal of confusion. Denmark, for instance, finds it suits them to pretend that this common fishery policy has something to do with the Rome Treaty, is a principle of the Rome Treaty and is endorsed by the Accession Treaty. This is completely false. There is nothing in the Rome Treaty which requires right of access. The Rome Treaty requires two things— non-discrimination on grounds of nationality and the right of establishment. This has not yet been fully implemented in relevant sectors like agriculture and fisheries but ultimately it must be implemented. Neither on the principle of non-discrimination nor the right of establishment is right of access required to another country's fisheries. They certainly require ultimately, when the right of establishment is fully implemented, that anybody coming to settle in another country and willing to operate in accordance with the regulations for entry into the trade of that country cannot be excluded by virtue of being a foreigner. He must be allowed to establish himself and there can be no discrimination on grounds of nationality in regard to the economic activities of that country. That does not in any way say that a member state has no right to control its fisheries, to conserve their use or to lay down conditions as to how they should be exploited, including that they should be exploited by fishermen based in ports of the state in question. There is nothing in the Rome Treaty that requires right of access to waters any more than it requires rights of access to farmers' fields for people from other countries to come in and pick the potatoes up.
The Accession Treaty incorporates a derogation from the provisions of the 1970 Regulation for a limited period. The fact that that derogation is incorporated in the Accession Treaty does not give any additional legal status to the original regulations. A derogation incorporated in a treaty cannot give treaty status to the thing it is derogated from and the implication that that is the case is one which we reject.
An important part of the discussions at the meeting last week at the council was the presentation of our political case. To be frank, I believe there are Ministers in other member countries who have either convinced themselves or been convinced by their own officials that they have a legal basis in the Rome Treaty or the Accession Treaty and it is important that they should understand this is not the case and that they have been wrongly advised in this respect. The only basis for right of access lies in the 1970 regulations adopted by the council, amendable by the council, requiring a political decision simply that they should be amended in the common interest. There is no legal impediment to that if the will is there to do it and that is what it is important to get across to other member countries.
The fact is that these regulations have to be reviewed in the new circumstances of the 200-mile limit because, while they are so worded as automatically to bring the new zones created by national declarations of 200-mile limits within the ambit and jurisdiction, if you like, of the regulation of 1970, nevertheless the regulations themselves do not adequately cope with the situation that arises from the 200-mile limit and it is necessary, therefore, to take certain measures.
Our position is that in declaring our 200-mile zone we will be bringing into the Community almost a quarter, well over one-fifth, of the total waters that would be included within the Community 200-mile zones of member states and that is a very considerable accession of wealth and resources to the Community. What the other members are seeking to do at this stage is to open negotiations to get a mandate from the Council to initiate negotiations with third countries, negotiations which, inter alia, would in some instances at least provide for an exchange of access between the 200-mile zones of the Community countries and 200-mile zones of the third countries involved. This is urgent because there are deep sea, long distance fishing fleets in some member countries— not in ours—which are dependent for their livelihood to a significant degree on fishing in waters within the 200-mile zones of other countries, notably Iceland, Norway, the United States of America, Canada and the autonomous Faroe Islands.
The urgency of these negotiations is evident and we accept that. We have no desire to impede them. We need them too. Let us be frank about it. It is important for us on the basis that a Community mandate opens negotiations with, for example, eastern European countries so as to secure agreement for the phasing out of their activities from our 200-mile zones as rapidly as possible. It would be against our interests to be held up indefinitely because the only effect would be to make it easier, and possibly legal, for ships of other member countries to continue to fish within 12 miles of our shores on the grounds that we had not ourselves opened negotiations for the phasing out process. We need these negotiations because they are important for us, but it is one thing to need them and it is another thing to agree them and go ahead without any indication of the basic principles upon which the internal regime rests.
It has been suggested in the Council of Ministers that we are being unreasonable in this matter, that the details could not be worked out in the time available, which now amounts to weeks at most. We have not sought for a detailed working out of these arrangements. We realise there is no time for that. What we have sought is that the principles to be laid down will be clear and explicit and offer the necessary guarantees to our fishing industry for its expansion, and we reject the suggestion that there should be some artificial linkage between the two negotiations for external and internal regimes, which is untrue. There is no way in which they could start negotiations with Norway and Iceland to give access to Norwegian and Icelandic vessels in any of the 200-mile zones, that would not affect us. Even if they confined that access to other than the Irish zone, the impact of fishing in the zones to which they gave that access would be such that Community states would be pushed out of that area towards Ireland and it would increase the weight of over-fishing in our area.
Secondly, negotiations in respect of 200-mile zones cannot take place unless it is clear what the coastal bands will be and the inner limits of the area to which access is given are disclosed. The idea that the two sets of negotiations can proceed separately, that without settling the internal regime one can negotiate the external one, is completely erroneous and I rejected it totally in the council meeting last week. Despite that, other member states continue to propound that fallacy.
We have given ample warnings of the gravity of the situation. It is not our fault that the Commission's proposals have come so late. We urged the Commission to produce them earlier. We pointed out the dangers of delay, the time that would be needed to discuss these matters, in good time before the negotiations had to start with Norway and other countries, and it is not our fault that the Commission left it so late. Why they did so I do not fully understand, but we cannot be put into the position that because they left it so late we must agree to external negotiations before we know what principles will underlie the internal regime. To accept that would be unreasonable. It would be an abandonment of a vital national right. We have to know what these proposals are.
So far, the proposals made by the Commission are totally inadequate for this country. There is no way in which anybody could reasonably contend that a 12-mile non-exclusive zone, combined with quotas based primarily on historic catches, with a reserve element, could have the effect of guaranteeing the future development of the Irish fishing industry. The Commission proposals do not have that result and are, therefore, inevitably unacceptable to us.
From the beginning we made it clear how we thought this matter could best be regulated. The simplest way, the cleanest way, the way that would cause least difficulty in matters of administration would be a coastal band of up to 50 miles within the outer part of which—we have to be reasonable in this, and we have been eminently reasonable—the traditional fishermen who have been fishing off our shores, with suitable sized boats could in a restricted way fish in the outer part, but a 50-mile zone with these limitations. Without that type of approach, we cannot see how future expansion of the Irish fishing industry can be guaranteed, and no one has suggested to us how it might be guaranteed. Nobody has attempted to tell us that the Commission proposals will have this effect. Propaganda in the newspapers of the eight other member states have done so, of course, but nothing has been said to attempt to demonstrate how these proposals could guarantee expansion for our fishing industry, but nobody has attempted to suggest that our proposals do not have that effect.
It has been suggested that our proposals are unreasonable, that they go too far, that they involve far too big a volume of fish being held back from other member countries, more than our fishermen could fish. Those criticisms have not been accompanied by any alternative proposals that would have the effect that would be necessary for us to accept any internal regime that would not guarantee the future development of the Irish fishing industry. It may be such proposals will be made. I cannot exclude that. I cannot say as a matter of absolute certainty that there could not be other proposals than ours which would have that effect—to attempt to say that would be absurdly arrogant and would make any negotiations impossible. It would be merely saying to our partners: "We will not listen to you no matter what you say to us", whereas, in fact, our position is a very strong one.
It is: "We are willing to listen to you if you say anything relevant to the problem. We are not willing to listen to proposals which do not guarantee the future expansion of the Irish fishing industry. If you do not put forward alternative proposals, then our proposals stand until and unless you put forward proposals which have the effect our proposals have and which we regard as necessary to safeguard our vital interests".
That is our position. It is vital our position should be reasonable. If we are to win back any of the ground conceded in 1970 we can only do so by being reasonable and by being seen to be reasonable. We must not underestimate the extent to which other member states have convinced themselves of the justice of their cause. I have rarely seen people so convinced that what is in their self-interest is also a matter of imperative moral right.
