Multi-annual guidance programme MAGP IV for the fishing fleets end 2000. Annual report

The committee adopted the report by Heinz KINDERMANN (PES, D) on the Commission's third annual report. MEPs criticised the failure by most Member States to reach the targets laid down in their MAGPs for reducing fleet capacity. The committee called for the reasons for this failure to be investigated, and demanded more effective penalties to enforce the rules of the guidance programmes. Looking ahead to the reform of the common fisheries policy, the report called for the MAGPs not to be continued in their present form. The committee believed that the primary goal of the MAGPs in future should be to ensure a sustainable balance between the available stocks and their exploitation. As part of new regulations on Community fleet policy, a range of objective criteria for measuring vessel capacity should be introduced. And as part of the same effort to reduce tonnage, the committee wanted a voluntary scrapping programme to be set up with attractive premiums as an inducement. However, it said that efforts to slim down the fishing industry must not be carried out at the expense of on-board working conditions, ship safety or catch quality. �