FROM: Struan Stevenson MEP

Conservative Euro MP for Scotland

Senior Vice President of the Fisheries Committee

SIR:  

Iceland’s application to join the EU should be welcomed. Iceland already fulfils most of the community’s membership criteria. Its application to join the European club should therefore be fast-tracked.

Had it not been for its lucrative fishing industry, Iceland would have joined the EU long ago. They need only look to Scotland to see how the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has destroyed fish stocks and laid waste to great swathes of our coastal communities.

The European Commission's Green Paper on CFP reform, which has just begun its legislative passage, offers a glimmer of hope. The commission has admitted that its management policies have failed. The Green Paper points the way to radical initiatives that will devolve control of fisheries management from the Brussels bureaucrats, handing it over to the stakeholders, the fishermen themselves.

Wary of opening their rich fishing grounds to Europe’s fleets, Iceland’s politicians are calling for a special deal, hoping compromise can be found that will exempt Iceland’s fishing sector from the CFP.

I can assure Iceland that many of us in Brussels will follow negotiations with great interest, because any concessions given to Iceland will also be demanded for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

In this respect Iceland can act as a trailblazer. If Iceland joins the EU without having to sign-up to the CFP, then the UK can surely make a case for opting out of the CFP too?

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