9th parliamentary term Jordi SOLÉ

EU fisheries partnership agreements with third countries have greatly improved over the last 10 years by increasing its support for local fisheries development, monitoring and control, and human rights requirements. In particular, the EU-Mauritania agreement contains several clauses such as direct support to the local fishing sector with EUR 16.5 million, the obligation of Mauritania to publish its agreements with third countries or payments from EU ship-owners based on the actual amount of fish caught. However, industrial overfishing puts biodiversity, ecosystems and the marine environment at risk, in addition to having a negative impact on local communities that depend on these resources. The European Union must stop fishing overexploitation and not externalising its costs. It should contribute to the stabilisation of species that are highly vulnerable to fishing pressure and at the same time not contribute to the destruction of local jobs that push small-scale fishermen to emigrate. For all the reasons mentioned above, I decided to abstain on the consent vote to the EU-Mauritania Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement and Implementing Protocol.

The Joint Motion for Resolution on the situation in Belarus, after one year of protests and their violent repression, is yet another good example of how the European Parliament continues to support the Belarusian democratic opposition and condemns its persecution and repression by Lukashenka’s regime.
The resolution also condemns the Belarusian regime’s instrumentalisation of migrants for political purposes, in breach of international law and Belarus’s bilateral treaties with its EU neighbours. However, as a key amendment tabled by the Greens/EFA – calling for unconditional compliance with EU and international law, also during emergency situations, and for the implementation of ECtHR interim measures and relocation – did not pass, I decided to abstain to the whole resolution, without prejudice to my full support and solidarity with the people of Belarus standing up for freedom and democracy.

. ‒ The EU Climate Law requires that all other EU legislation is in line with the climate target of 52.8% reduction of emissions. Certainly, the approval of such binding legal rules is something that the Greens/EFA group have been fighting for during the last years. However, we as a political Group agreed to vote against the EU Climate Law because its climate target is simply insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 2°C, let alone the 1.5°C that climate scientists say we need to achieve. For this reason, we understand that the end result of the Climate Law is not in line with the Paris Agreement. Nonetheless, we will continue to push for the necessary reduction of emissions in all the other EU climate policies such as the upcoming package ‘Fit for 2030’.