The Case Against Returning to A Failed Fishing Past
Charles Clover’s weekly column in the Sunday Times today (30 June 2013) is well worth reading.
The firewall makes it hard to see so for a short while I have added transcribed it below.
Charles is no friend of euro-madness and financial waste. So, the European Fisheries Committee’s moves to increase subsidies and pay for boat building at taxpayers expense must have made his (and any taxpayers) blood boil.
French Conservatives
That the move is being led by a French Conservative (Alain Cadec MEP), who makes George Galloway seem like a New Labour high priest (really political and economic logic are thrown upside down in Brussels) just adds more comedy to the tragedy.
Social Democrats Back Big Spending Conservatives
The Social Democrat Group have worked out a compromise with Comrade Cadec. This means it look certain that on the 10 th July the fisheries committee will back taxpayers paying for fishing boats.
No Luddites Here
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind if new fishing boats are being built. Indeed, I think it will be a good thing. I don’t mind as long as taxpayers don’t pay for the financial investments of skippers. If things go well, fishermen and fish prosper. If bad economic signals lead people to over invest in new trawlers when the economics and fish stocks don’t balance, fishermen and stocks, and all too often taxpayers who would pay for the building and vessel buy back at taxpayers expense, loose out.
10 July
It will be interesting to see if the UK Conservatives (Struan Stevenson & Julie Girling), Unionists (Diane Dodds), Nationalists (Ian Hudghton) and UKIP (John Stuart Agnew) will vote against Amendments 2 & 20 on 10 July. The Liberal Democrats (Chris Davies) I am sure will oppose this waste.
It will also be interesting to see if the Fisheries Committee allows the whole of the European Parliament vote on the agreed report before they enter into talks with the Council.
Comrade Cadec is desperate to avoid getting a mandate from the whole Parliament. He does not have to, but it is usual to. He is sure that if he does the whole Parliament, less concerned about supporting the financial aid of Brittany and the like, will strike down the worse excesses of corporate welfarism French style.
Opponents of real reform of the CFP were humiliated by the full Parliament. They’ll do anything to avoid their eagerness to spend taxpayers money being called out and shut down.
Read
Here is the piece:
