European Union Consultation – Including ban on use of projectiles .

[KWM]

From a contact In France, seems like the pressure is on. That said it seems like we all fill the same and will beleive it when it happens.
Not speaking any French myself, but I would presume it says the same thing.

Hello Kevin,

Good news, we had a reply from the EU, and they said in the message below, that recreative fishing will be excluded from the final text proposal.

Now we have to wait for the next revision of the text, and look what is inside.


Regards.


Didier.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: Fisheries-Info@ec.europa.eu
> To:
> Subject: RE: Feedback to Fisheries (FR) - 10226 {REF MARE REG/F2(2008)D/8522}
> Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:22:07 +0200
>
>
> Monsieur,
>
> Nous vous remercions pour votre courrier électronique.
>
> En réponse à votre question concernant la proposition de Règlement du Conseil relatif à la conservation des ressources halieutiques par des mesures techniques, nous avons le plaisir de vous informer que la Commission Européenne à essayé de préparer une proposition simplifiée sur les mesures techniques, aussi bien au niveau de la structure qu'au niveau des articles. En ce qui concerne l'utilisation des projectiles, nous devrons vérifier les types de projectile à interdire, mais nous pouvons néanmoins vous assurer que la Commission n'a pas l'intention d'interdire l'utilisation de tout type de projectiles pour la pêche récréative, en particulier pour la plongée sous-marine. Si cela n'est pas clair, l'article concerné sera corrigé avant l'adoption dudit règlement par le Conseil.
>
> Nous vous prions de recevoir Monsieur, nos meilleures salutations.
>
> Unité information et communication
> DG Affaires maritimes et Pêche
> Commission Européenne
> 1049 Bruxelles

 

[turunc2006]

Blimey, that old French O Level comes in useful sometimes.

Here's my translation Kev.

Malc.

*********************************************************************************************

Sir.

We thank you for your e-mail.

In response to your query concerning the proposal of the Council Resolution relating to the conservation of fisheries' resources through technical measures, we have the pleasure to inform you that the European Commission tried to prepare a simplified proposal at the structure and article level. .

As regards to the usage of projectiles, we shall need to check the projectile types that need to be banned, but we can nevertheless assure you that the Commission has NO intention to ban the usage of any type of projectiles for recreational fishing, and in particular for underwater diving. If that isn't clear, the relevant article will be corrected before the aforementioned rule is adopted by the Council.

We trust Sir that you receive our best wishes.

 

[turunc2006]

Response from the LibDems.

**********************************************************

Many thanks for your e-mail to which I’m responding on Chris’s behalf.

I know that Graham Watson MEP, the leader of the ALDE group in the European Parliament, has written to the European Commission asking for confirmation that following consultation with DEFRA it is seeking to prohibit Spearfishing.

I shall be happy to arrange for a copy of the response to be sent to you in advance of any specific proposals being put before MEPs if you can supply me with your full address.

In the event that the Commission is intending to prohibit Spearfishing, Chris will raise the issue among Liberal Democrat MEPs in Brussels.

With best regards,

Danny Langley

Danny Langley
Political Officer
Office of Chris Davies MEP

87a Castle Street
Stockport
SK3 9AR
United Kingdom

Telephone:+44 (0) 161 477 7150
Fax:+44 (0) 161 477 7007
www.chrisdaviesmep.org.uk

 

[turunc2006]

To which I've replied..........

**********************************************************

I have been provisionally 'told' to expect the proposal (2008/324) to be amended during the discussions so that it does not imply a ban on recreational spearfishing. I need to see this confirmed in concrete and so I am therefore keen to follow the progress and confirmation of the amended proposal before it goes to Council.

I am therefore particularly interested in being kept informed of the following :

a) the date and times of the EU parliament meeting or meetings when this proposal (2008/324) is actually discussed

b) when the amended proposal is available for inspection (e.g. on Eur-lex or wherever) before it goes to the Council

Can you supply me with this information please?

 

[turunc2006]

And my response to Struan Stevenson's PA.........

**********************************************************

Hi Anna.

Thanks for all the info.

As you can imagine, since we have been verbally assured by Struan that the proposal (2008/324) will be amended during the discussions so that it does not imply a ban on recreational spearfishing, we are keen to follow the progress and confirmation of the amended proposal before it goes to Council.

I am therefore particularly interested in being kept informed of the following :

a) the date and times of the parliament meeting or meetings when this proposal (2008/324) is actually discussed

b) when the amended proposal is available for inspection (e.g. on Eur-lex or wherever) before it goes to the Council

I noticed that some of the EU meetings are video streamed and so if available I would like to watch the meeting or meetings referred to in a) whilst they happen preferably or if not when archived. Also are these meetings minuted in writing and minutes made available to the public on the EU public websites? I could then scan them for '2008/324' to read about and then confirm progress back to my other spearfishing colleagues here in the UK.

Any further info or advice re the above will be very much appreciated.

Feel free to forward this e-mail on to Mr Visser's office if it makes things easier..

 

[Mr. X]

I just got a written response (i.e. via Royal Mail) from Giles Chichester MEP. I wasn't really expecting it as his PA had already explained that the Conservative MEPs have chosen to split the area up between them to spread the workload, and another Conservative MEP is responsible for my area. So bonus marks to Giles (I believe he was formerly the leader of the Conservatives in Europe), & Struan Stevenson MEP their Scottish EU fisheries spokesman.

The response is similar to some of the above, although there is an additional paragraph:

"I am informed that it is not the intention of the European Commission to prohibit recreational spear fishing...if this point is not clear, the article concerned will be corrected later during discussions.

With regards to the definition of a "projectile", the Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE) have said that they need to check, however they can confirm, as stated above, that it is not the Commission's intention to ban recreational spear fishing"

Nice letter and good to have a response from a senior MEP on headed paper, clearly stating that it is not the Commission's intention to ban spear fishing. It might worth keeping this letter in case in the future DEFRA end up trying to argue in court that article 12 bans spear fishing.

Giles lives near Ottery St. Mary, E. Devon - close to several good spear fishing beaches.

Petition upto 267. I am happy to see that a couple of my colleagues signed too.

 

[sunfish]

I've had three replies so far to five letters sent to my three MEPs, my local TD (Irish MP equivalent), and Avril Doyle (MEP and also vice chairperson of the Fisheries Committee).
A letter from Brian Crowley MEP says that he wasn't aware of the amendments but will check out the matter for me and get in touch.
A letter from Jim O'Keefe TD, says that he has made contact with Avril Doyle MEP and will be in touch when he has a reply.
My third reply was a phone call from Avril Doyles office. They said that the amendment was unlikely to go through as it stands and that the intention was not to ban recreational spearfishing. I have the name and phone number of a woman in Avril Doyles office so that I can Keep up with things.
It took me a while to get round to writing the letters but so far the replies are encouraging.

 

[turunc2006]

Right guys. Looks like we've got loads of different important people (the MEPs in particular) alerted to our concerns about the proposal and it's now time to get wise to the working machinery of the EU so we can see the concerns being addressed and acted on by the EU Parliament and Council and a suitably amended proposal come about.

The way I understand law passing works in the EU is that a proposal gets made by the EU Commission, this is then passed for debate, consultation and recommendations by our MEP's friends in the EU Parliament and then finally the proposal (suitably amended if required) gets officially passed by the relevant Council of Ministers.

To this end I've had some good results researching into the EU websites this afternoon and I've found out where meeting agendas, subsequent minutes and future meeting dates are kept and I've found the ones relevant to the proposal.

As stated in the reply I got back from Struan Stevenson's PA, the Fisheries Committee is the relevant bit of the EU Parliament responsible for pursuing 'our' proposal (2008/0324) - 'Conservation of fisheries resources through technical measures'.

And remember Straun is ON this committee!

I can confirm that (EU Parliament) Fisheries Committee meetings were scheduled last Tuesday and Wednesday (July 15th & 16th). The proposal appears at item 9 in the draft agenda at :

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides...H-OJ-20080715-1+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN

Struan Stevenson's PA said that the Commission had already presented the proposal on 4th June so it's not clear to me whether the Commission were officially present and were introducing/announcing the initial proposal to the Committee at his meeting - probably not. Anyway the minutes of the meetings will tell us, but they aren't available yet in the relevant section to see if there was any actual discussion of the contents of the proposal. I shall keep an eye out for the minutes - they should be imminent. As soon as they appear I'll obviously update this thread.

Note the above agenda also tells us that the next scheduled meeting for the Fisheries Committee is to be held on Thu, 28th August, 2008 (09:00-12:30). Maybe this is when the real important debate of the proposal starts.

As I said on an earlier thread, some EU meetings are videostreamed live or archived for later viewing via their websites and in any of the languages of the EU states (boy, I hate saying states).

Maybe we'll be able to actually watch this August meeting on-line whilst it happens or via a subsequent archive.

(P.S. As you've seen earlier in the thread, I had asked relevant MEP's to let me know where the documentation of the proposal business lives, but I've now found it. Be interesting to see how many replies I get if any and when.)

 

[turunc2006]

Ahh.. Struan's PA did say in a previous e-mail .............

'The first exchange of views with the European Commission took place in the Fisheries Committee yesterday afternoon'

so looks like the Commission were 'present' at the meeting for a first exchange of views with the Fisheries Committee!


.

 

[Mr. X]

It'll be spiffing if Johnny foreigner gives us chaps permission to carry on spearing in British waters. What ho Pongo!

 

[Padaxes]

I got the same letter via snail mail mr X , was impressed too Using real mail makes it seem more.... official lol

 

[KWM]

I always felt that those foreign chaps would have there use.

Thank god for the European Union. As you rightly say MR X ( and Mr Y if you are communicating with the chappies) It not for them we might have gone the same way as fox hunting.

Kev

 

[Mr. X]

I was being ironic. What have things come to when we need to get permission from a bunch of europeans just to fish in our own waters in the same old time honoured way that we have always done? But you might be right in this instance, perhaps they will protect us from DEFRA over zealousness/clumsiness - we'll see. Who came up with the proposed change, the EU/DEFRA/New Labour/...?

[Talking of Europeans protecting us, whatever happened to the EU 2 year warranty on consumer goods introduced by the EU in 2002?]

Time to rattle the cages of our UKIP, Labour and Lib-Democrat MEPs?

 

[KWM]

So was I

Kev

 

[turunc2006]

Back to the EU websites, the progress of the proposal through its various legislative stages is being recorded in the following document :-

Legislative Observatory: Procedure file, legislative dossier - European Parliament

those French speakers amongst us will recognise the usage of the word 'oeil' in the underlying link which means 'eye' in English.

Let's keep an 'oeil' on it!

 

[turunc2006]

As you can see in the document via the link above, a certain Mr Cornelis Visser MEP is the official 'rapporteur' for the proposal.

Essentially the process is that once the Commission has made a proposal it will be reviewed/amended/scrutinised by MEPs on the relevant committee in the EU Parliament - in this case the Fisheries Committee .

The Committee then selects one MEP to be the point man for authoring the report which will then form the basis of the Parliament’s response. There are various amendments that take place at that point. This is the rapporteur's responsibility.

Mr Visser seems to be our real target man to contact and his e-mail address is :
mailto:cornelis.visser@europarl.europa.eu.

I've just sent him the original objection e-mail I sent to all my local MEPs and MP in which I illustrate how recreational spearfishing is consistent with what the EU are really trying to do in this proposal.

I await his reply.

 

[Mr. X]

It seems like our govt. has got big, complicated & remote.

I've re-contacted the MEP that did not respond (to any of his 3 email addresses - but I found 2 more for him!! Your taxes at work.), and the others that acknowledged the original email but have not followed through. Do the EU break up for the Summer?

Still no word from DEFRA - good to see a government that is responsive to the people

Brace yourselves: I see the govt. have announced, yet again, plans to bring in a Marine Bill next year. We'll need to monitor that. On past form, the abolition of freedoms and introduction of stealth taxes will be things to watch out for. Big government, Big Brother.

 

[Mr. X]

Article 1 of the document defines the scope of the document - perhaps they could exclude recreation fishing entirely?
Article 3 of the document includes a definition of terms but it does not currently define projectile. They could define projectile not to include spears.

Some interesting quotes from the document, bearing in mind that spearing is probably the most selective fishing technique:

...Improvements in selectivity will then be brought about gradually through future amendments of these rules, in parallel with the general improvement in the conservation status of Community fish stocks to be achieved through other elements of conservation policy, such as multi-annual plans.

The proposal applies to commercial and recreational fishing in all European waters except for the Mediterranean Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and in fisheries for highly migratory fish stocks in all waters, for which specific rules apply.


...the Commission considers that sustainable fishing, particularly for demersal fisheries, calls for a substantial increase in the selectivity of fishing gear...

(3) In its Communication from June 2004[19], the Commission proposed ways in which the Community can further promote the use of environmentally-friendly fishing methods, particularly through technical conservation measures, while taking account of the need to find a balance between environmental and economic objectives. The use of such fishing methods should be taken into account.

Environmentally & freshness-wise, better if I catch the odd mackeral/bass/pollock/mullet/flatty/etc. by careful selection rather than paying for a £1m+ trawler to steam over to Norway, possibly exceeding some of its quotas with bycatch which must be discarded dead, then ship it back to Scotland & drive it down to London and onto southern England. More than 80% of seafood caught is shipped abroad anyway - we don't yet eat enough fish in the UK for our own good. (We do buy locally caught mackeral every week though.)

 

[turunc2006]

My objection e-mail was full of selected quotes from the proposal to illustrate how recreational spearfishing is consistent with the proposal's fundamental objective of the improvement of selectivity, sustainability, discard reduction etc for North Atlantic fishing.

As I said, Mr Visser is the main MEP man here and is responsible for getting this proposal amended.

So send your objections to him on mailto:cornelis.visser@europarl.europa.eu :-

 

[Morgan33]

Chaps, see attached response from commission.