EC/Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement: fishing opportunities and financial compensation from 28 February 2011 to 27 February 2012. Protocol

2011/0139(NLE)

The Committee on Fisheries adopted the report drafted by Carl HAGLUND (ALDE, FI) on the draft Council decision on the conclusion of a new one-year Protocol between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco setting out the fishing opportunities and financial compensation provided for in the Fisheries Partnership Agreement between the European Community and the Kingdom of Morocco.

The report as finally adopted in committee recommended that the European Parliament should give its consent to the conclusion of the new Protocol.

It should be noted that the result of the vote in committee did not reflect the rapporteur’s opinion on the conclusion of the Protocol, which had been provisionally applied since 28 February 2011. The rapporteur had recommended that Parliament should decline to give its formal consent to the extension of the fishing Protocol due to major shortcomings which he himself had witnessed. He claimed that the Agreement was a waste of taxpayers' money, was ecologically and environmentally unsustainable and had no significant macro-economic effect on either the EU or Morocco.

It should also be noted that the committee vote did not reflect the two opinions of the Committee on Development and the Committee on Budgets.