Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs Fraga Estevez for this report and to say that it goes some way to relieve the concerns I had with the Commission's proposal. But, nevertheless, I sincerely regret that I cannot support it.

Mrs Fraga Estevez raised the fact that violence flared up last summer between groups of people employing different means to exploit the tuna fisheries. One of the things that concerns me about the Commission's proposal is that it appears to give total appeasement and to grant every demand of the people who employed violence against their competitors in this particular sector.

This proposal has not been introduced because it is supported by any scientific fact; it is not related in any way to claims of damage to marine life based on any scientific fact. It seems to be a proposal designed to appease the economic interests of a particular sector of the Spanish fishing industry. The proposal would wipe out an important sector in France and in Ireland it would lead to the loss of 2,000 jobs in economically sensitive areas.

If the concern of this proposal was the stocks, why have we not imposed quotas as we have done heretofore in other areas? If the concern is about the danger to marine life, why have we not waited until we got the scientific facts presented to us as we normally do?

I sincerely hope that if this proposal is accepted, that the people who are already taking 70% of the fish out of this sector and who are seeking to have the people who take the other 30% banned from it, will not then be allowed to raise their catch by something like 50% - which they hope to do. If the stocks are the problem, then let us pin the people who use line-fishing at the moment to the amount of fish that they are taking out of the sector. If the Commission would add that to the proposal, it would go some way to allay the concerns that I have about its partiality towards one sector.