By Emily Smith - 6th May 2004
Brussels has rejected claims the EU is sabotaging the Scottish fishing industry whilst handing out fisheries funds to landlocked countries.
Scottish right wingers this week objected to the fact that Europe’s ten new member states are getting EU fisheries money whilst Scotland is having to scale back its fleet.
They were particularly outraged to note that three of the ten - Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – do not have any coastline.
But a commission spokesman told EUpolitix.com that having no fleet did not rule out the need for fisheries cash.
“This money covers a wide range of sectors – fish farming, inland fisheries, marketing and processing of fish,” she said.
“Especially in rural areas, this money can be an important source of jobs.”
She pointed out that Hungary has a large carp farming industry, and that trout farming is also important in many of the new countries.
And she said that claims the new countries could use money to increase their fleet were “nonsense”.
“Under the CFP [common fisheries policy] you have to scrap more than you’re building – that’s a rule.”
But Scottish conservative MEP Struan Stevenson said money for the new countries was still not fair for Britain.
“The problem is that ships in the new countries are old and unseaworthy – their average age is 30.”
“This money will be used to modernise them so that they can once again make the long journey to the North Sea – a trip they would not currently be up to making.”
Stevenson says this is unfair when UK ships are being asked to drastically scale back their fishing effort in the same area.
Many Scottish Tories would like to pull out of the CFP altogether.
Scottish conservative Ted Brocklebank said on Thursday that “If we want to maintain a fishing industry in Scotland, and if we want to provide our fishing communities with a viable and sustainable future, we must take back control of our waters”.
“This can only be achieved by withdrawal from the CFP.”
Would-be Scottish Nationalist MEP Alyn Smith added “It’s time to dump the CFP and return control of our own fishing grounds to Scotland”.
“We have the opportunity to make this happen if Scotland fights its corner and uses the negotiations over the new EU constitution to kill off Brussels control of Scotland’s fisheries.”
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