European Community waters

The main problem with control mechanisms within European Community waters is driven by the fact that we have excess fishing capacity in our fleets.

Since 1985, Norway and the Faroe Islands are allowed annual quotas of 200 tons and 125 tons respectively from European Community waters.

In this regard, the case of the Irish Box for example, or other areas in European Community waters, that is, continental waters, is not the same as the case of the Azores.

If we take it forward: Say, for instance, they had agreed that some monitoring was possible - surely they would not have certain working hours outside European Community waters and ports and then change once they were inside our geographical area.

But as we seek to manage our fisheries sustainably by limiting fishing in the European Community waters, we should be careful not to export the problem of over-fishing by handing out authorisations for vessels to freely exploit waters of third countries.