I very much share Mr Watts's frustration. I know that it is correct for the Council to say that this is a problem for the individual Member States, as indeed it said about a lot of the questions raised tonight.

But can we have a bit of forward-thinking from the Council. We are about to approach another major intergovernmental conference in 1996, when we will review the Treaty of Rome and, indeed, the competence of the European Union.

Would the Council not accept that it is about time that we considered the establishment of a Euro-coastguard which would have a multi-faceted role to deal with air-sea traffic rescue, to deal with the problems of criminality on the high seas, such as drugs, to deal with the problems of environmental damage on European coastal waters and a host of other issues? At a time when we are seriously talking about a defence policy and maybe the establishment of a European army, surely we could learn about the benefits of what the coastguard does in the United States and maybe have a similar one within Europe as well?