Thomas Pringle TD
Home / Press Releases / Oireachtas Marine Committee attends CFP conference in Brussels.

Oireachtas Marine Committee attends CFP conference in Brussels.

Independent Thomas Pringle TD attended as part of an Oireachtas delegation a conference on the Common Fisheries Policy hosted by the EU Parliament Fisheries Committee on Tuesday February 28th.

‘The proposals from the commissioner, Maria Damanaki for the reform of the CFP are currently with the Parliament for their consideration. The conference was organised to hear the views of the national parliaments of the EU on the reforms proposed. This is the first time that the review of the CFP will be decided by co-decision between the Parliament and the Commission. This means that the Parliament will be very keen to stamp its authority on the proposal and hopefully will mean that the views of national parliaments are fully heard during the consultation processes’.

‘The committee strongly expressed the opposition of the Oireachtas to the privatisation of quotas proposed by the commission and the need to ensure that the proposals on discarding are modified to reflect the need to include technical measures to ensure that the catching of unwanted fish is minimised’.

‘Speaking on the European Maritime and Fishery Fund measure I emphasised the need to ensure that funding is provided to improve safety measures in our fleet and that the view of the committee that funding should be available for fishermen in times of crisis should also be available for crew members. I also proposed that the fund should have funding to assist communities that have suffered job losses through fleet rationalisation and modernisation in the processing sector- this funding should be targeted through local authorities or community partnerships to ensure that it targets communities directly’.

‘The review of the CFP is continuing and the Fisheries Committee are due to finalise their deliberations in September, it will be interesting to see how the co-decision requirement will work out in practice and I hope that it will be of benefit to our fishing communities’. ENDS

Be Sociable, Share!