Henrik Dam Kristensen, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (DA) Mr President, in my home country of Denmark, as in so many other places in the Community, eel fishing has a long history, and in many places eel is an important foodstuff. This tradition is now threatened, not only in Denmark but throughout the Community, as a result of the critical state of the eel stock. The European eel is now so overfished that the stock is only around 1% of what it was in the past. This is not only a precarious situation, it is also a great challenge for the common fisheries policy. In the end, one may add, it is also the last chance.

The main aim of this report is for each Member State to produce a national Eel Management Plan for each and every river basin, and precisely the fact that the report covers each and every river basin is very important. These plans are intended to make it highly probable that a high percentage of the biomass of adult eels will be able to escape back to sea. Under the Commission’s original proposal, there was to be a sea-return rate of around 40%. This, in my opinion, was a positive feature and, in fact, I would also have preferred us to have retained it.

Something else that I am very happy about – and another thing that Mr Maat was involved in – is that we will now be having special measures to ensure that the restocking of fry can continue. It is absolutely critical that we have fry, because, if we do not, then we have no possibility of rebuilding our stocks.

It seems to me that, through his report, Mr Maat has produced some good work, and I would very much like to thank him for that. I believe that we now have before us something that can be made use of and that has great significance for all of us, and I hope that both Parliament’s contribution and the debate to take place amongst the fisheries ministers in the Council will result in the development of an action plan that will lead to the rebuilding of the eel stock. As I said at the beginning, we are now at the stage where the situation is such that, if an effective effort is not made on the part of each and every Member State, eels within the Community, as such, will be a thing of the past. We have an obligation to safeguard the stock of eels.