Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 12 March 2015 - Strasbourg

Sustainable exploitation of sea bass (debate)

  Julie Girling (ECR). – Mr President, I welcome this resolution and I thank Mr Cadec for bringing it forward and for his work.

In June 2014 ICES published its report on bass stocks, which clearly illustrated the need for action. In the following December Council, the UK Government submitted a reasoned request to the Commission for emergency measures. I would like to congratulate the UK Minister George Eustice for taking this stand.

There is one part of the resolution that I would like to highlight this morning. That is to ask Members to give further and careful consideration to recreational fishing. In the UK I believe the recreational sector has taken a sensible approach to the issue by showing a willingness to accept conservation measures, such as the bag limit, but we need to have further discussions on exactly how that will work and we need to make sure that the measures are proportionate and workable.

In my region, the south-west of England, many of the recreational fishing boats are actually crewed and owned by fishermen, either doing it on the days when they are not able to go to sea because of EU conservation rules or because they have moved out of fishing altogether. I would like to support that and make sure that we do not give the wrong messages about their work.