This fishery is vitally important to fishermen in this area between July and September. I made the point strongly that while this fishery may not seem important in an overall context it is crucially important during this time of the year.
It is proposed to have a two year lead-in time, including this year and next year. I objected strenuously to this proposal and I have no doubt from the discussions that there will be a longer lead-in time. France and Ireland fought this point strongly at the meeting.
The conclusions of the Presidency are relevant in this regard. The President of the Council concluded as follows:
It is clear that a majority in this Council is concerned about the by-catch problems which exist in the driftnet fishery for tuna and sword fish and envisage that a ban on such fishing is needed, although some delegations (France and Ireland) take a different view. The Presidency working document would represent a technical basis for such a measure. (This was the document before the meeting of Ministers.)
The Commissioner has been very helpful in her statement on compensatory measures. We note that the Commission is fully prepared to adopt, together with Member States, appropriate flanking measures. (These are effectively compensatory measures.) The Commission has indicated that 1. there should be assistance for those wishing to give up fishing and for those wishing to convert to other fishing activities or other methods of fishing [this effectively covers the three possibilities] and 2. any measures must become effective quickly.
On conversion to other fishing activities, our argument is that there is already a fishery and our fishermen want to stay involved in it. This is what we must try to achieve. The third proposal is that expenditure should be kept within existing funding provisions. This means existing funding provisions for the fishery sector generally. We pointed out that we are different from other countries in that we do not have major funding we can shift to this area and, therefore, there will have to be specific provision for us. This point was accepted. We will have to see what can be negotiated in this regard.
The fourth proposal is that compensation should apply only to those who have already participated in the fishery. This is a reasonable point. We made the point that we are talking about people who have a track record, not people who fished this year or last year. That is another point for considerable debate.