Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just before I start, one of our members is detained somewhat, but he will be along. Duarte Freitas, from Portugal, is also a member of the fisheries committee. In his absence, I want to introduce him, because he has some very direct views on fisheries.
As members of the committee with relations with Canada, we're delighted that we have the opportunity to discuss the fisheries issue, because of course, as we mentioned, many of us are on our own fisheries committee. But let me tell you from the start that I believe there's a vast difference between what we discuss, at times, and what might be discussed in other regions on fisheries, because the common fisheries policy is all basic remit within that committee. We are, I might as well say, somewhat critical of the way the common fisheries policy is organized, but it is our policy, and we endeavour to ensure that we keep the fisheries sustainable and that we preserve the stock that we have.
As Gary Titley mentioned, I was only a few days in the European Parliament some years ago when I was entrusted with the arduous task of protecting what we call the “Irish box”, which is a very sensitive spawning grounds in the Atlantic Ocean into which many other member states wanted free access. But we did preserve that somewhat at the time, with the help of everyone in the European Parliament, and I believe now with our commissioner, Commissioner Joe Borg from Malta, we are endeavouring very much to bring about sustainability and preserve the fishing stock that is in our seas.
It's not an easy task, because the stock is diminishing. We have to understand that if we do not act and curtail overfishing, and particularly curtail the amount of bad fishing habits--let's put it that way--that we have brought about over the years, we will have no stock into the future to fish with. In that regard, we often come to a misunderstanding, let's say, with some member states.
I would like to point out that the legal remit for fisheries is the responsibility of the Council of Ministers, who annually come together—and that will happen now quite soon, in the month of December—and agree on the quotas and the TAC, or total allowable catch, and the quotas that go to each representative member state. Of course, that has an historical consequence in that when the quotas and TACs were originally given out in Europe, it was based on the capacity of each member state's fishing fleet at the time. Things have emerged and changed since, but there is no opportunity to give any change to that quota and TAC, because it must be proportionate to the original division that occurred because of the member states' capacity to fish—in other words, the tonnage and available boat capacity of the member states.
So that has been a cantankerous issue since. For example, a member state such as Ireland—and I'll only give my own parochial view—has 11% of the seas, but we have only something less than 4% of the action. We're not very comfortable with that, but it's a sharing policy and we have to understand that we have to work within that. But the main concern at the moment is the sustainability of fish stocks, and that will be.
I know you have raised the sealing issue. We would not be as au fait as you are with that particular area of fishing, so we look forward to having a very good exchange of views on that. It is true that a declaration has been signed in the European Parliament and that is the position of that declaration at the moment, but it's merely a declaration. It is a request of the commission to report to Parliament and the Council of Ministers, and of course the deliberations of that report will be seen into the future.
But the situation as it stands is that I cannot remember that we dealt in any great depth in the fisheries committee with the subject of sealing. So we look very much forward to your conclusions and to your deliberations on that.
We have also in our presence a member, Ian Hudghton, who is longer on the fisheries committee longer than I am, and we have selected him as our spokesman here today. So if you don't mind, I'll hand over to Ian.