WE MUST RENEW OUR SUPPORT FOR SCOTTISH SALMON

At a Conference in Poland on Monday 1st March on Aquaculture and Inland Fisheries in the European Union, I reiterated my view that Scottish salmon is absolutely safe to eat despite recent spurious reports to the contrary.

I reminded the Conference that a recent article published in an American science magazine was deliberately misleading in the advice it provided on salmon consumption, causing further significant damage to the industry. Biased press coverage, prompted by the article and a lack of quality information, led to a food scare based on insubstantial evidence and innuendo.

The article claimed that some farmed salmon contained toxic levels of PCBs and dioxins and advised consumers to restrict their intake to 3 or 4 tiny portions a year. However, selective reporting of the article failed to mention that the scientists had actually found dioxin levels in salmon were falling and, in any case, were well below designated international safety thresholds. The article also failed to mention that the benefits of eating oily fish like salmon, rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, far outweigh any risks.

The research on which this misleading information was founded was commissioned by the Philadelphia-based $3.8 billion Pew Charitable Trusts, influential opponents of the aquaculture industry. Needless to say, the information was quickly seized upon and used by campaigners on behalf of Alaskan wild salmon, who have a vested interest in seizing our share of the lucrative US market.

Aquaculture is the only segment of the fisheries industry that has seen a slow but steady increase of employment over recent years. We must protect and promote the high standards of Scottish salmon and not allow selective and biased interpretation of data results to bring the quality into question. Aquaculture plays an important socio-economic role by creating job opportunities in some of Scotland's most peripheral areas.

HANDS OF OUR LOCHS AND RIVERS

The EU is threatening to extend the Common Fisheries Policy to cover the UK's lakes, lochs and rivers, if pressure from the ten new accession states in Eastern Europe bears fruit. Speaking at a conference in Warsaw on March 1st, attended by all the Accession States, I strongly opposed such a move and warned that it would be wildly unpopular in the rest of the EU.

The conference in Warsaw has been organised by the Polish Senate to highlight the plight of inland and freshwater fisheries throughout the ten accession countries which are about to join the EU. A recent report by IUCN (The World Conservation Union) states that total freshwater fish catches in the Eastern European countries fell from 476,000 tonnes in 1990 to 345,000 tonnes in 2000, a decline of over 27%. The stocks affected include pike, perch, eels, sturgeon, salmon and trout. The report blames this decline on too many fishermen chasing too few fish, and on illegal and unreported fishing of depleted stocks, pointing out that there are an estimated 8.2 million recreational fishermen, compared to some 17,000 professional fishermen in the accession states.

These dire warnings of collapsing fish stocks and illegal fishing have a familiar ring to those of us struggling with cod recovery plans in the North Sea. However, in this case the fish stocks concerned are in inland lakes and rivers in the ten accession states. Clearly these countries are looking for financial help when they join the EU on 1st May and the Poles have called this conference to see what shape that help might take. They appear to think that the solution may lie with the extension of the CFP to cover all lakes, lochs and rivers throughout the EU.

What few people realise is that, under Article 37 of the Treaty, the competence of the Council of Ministers is not restricted solely to Community maritime waters and could readily be extended to inland waters. So such a solution would be easily available and could be implemented without a change in the Treaties. I therefore intend to urge the acceding nations not to press for this outcome as a remedy to the over-exploitation of their freshwater fisheries. This would really be taking a hammer to crack a nut and would certainly not be warmly welcomed in many parts of the EU where the CFP has been regarded as something of a disaster.

The extension of CFP conservation and management measures to inland fishing activity could cause enormous problems in some Member States. Given the appalling difficulties suffered by the UK whitefish fleet under the CFP, I cannot see the people of Britain welcoming with open arms the news that the Brussels bureaucrats could take over control of our famous lakes, lochs and rivers. The next thing we know there would be a fishing effort limitation scheme imposed on Lake Windermere and Loch Ness and TAC's and quotas applied to the Dee, the Tay and the Tyne. We clearly cannot countenance such an extension of Brussels power.

BACK TO THE FUTURE - A VIEW OF THE EU FROM SCOTLAND

'It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.'
Extract from the Declaration of Arbroath, 1320.

On 6th. April 1320 the Nobles of Scotland gathered at Arbroath Abbey to sign a Declaration. The Declaration of Arbroath was without doubt the most famous document in Scottish history. Like the American Declaration of Independence, which is partially based on it, it is seen by many as the founding document of the Scottish nation. The Declaration invoked the special protection of the Holy See for the Scottish Church. Later, the Treaty of Union in 1707 preserved the national institutions of Scotland, the Church, the law and the educational system, for all time coming.

The history of Scotland has been the history of a small country merging with larger entities yet preserving its nationhood, the sense of which is today as strong as it has ever been. Throughout our long history, Scots have always accepted that some sacrifices have to be made for the sake of progress towards greater common aims. At the same time, we have always been intent on gaining some special protection for the interests that lie closest to us.

I firmly believe that European agreements, now and in the future, should be no less sensitive to the symbols and the substance of nationhood. Large countries can demand and usually get special protection for their vital national interests, but small countries depend on the constitutional arrangements for Europe being drawn up in a genuine spirit of deference to diversity and of respect for difference.The construction of a new European Union will be fatally compromised if it is conceived of as something hostile to and destructive of the national traditions that large countries andsmallcountriescherishalike.

Just as our forefathers were prepared to fight for Scotland's freedom as a nation, so must we fight to retain that freedom and the rich heritage from which Scots have benefited as part of the United Kingdom. While the nature of the threats to our freedom may have changed, they are no less serious for that. Because we face today the prospect of a Labour government prepared to commit Britain to a new European Constitution which will, for the first time, enshrine the primacy of EU law. Article 10 of the draft Constitution specifically states that European laws will have constitutional primacy over national law.

The proposed Constitution would even incorporate a Charter of Fundamental Rights, giving every citizen of Europe the constitutional right to strike and to bargain collectively. Frighteningly, it also contains an Oil Chapter, which passes control of energy resources to Brussels. 75% of EU oil is in UK waters, so this would constitute a major coup for the EU, effectively seizing control of our rich oil fields in the same way as they seized our fishing grounds.

I believe that the United Kingdom should keep the pound sterling. The pound not only symbolises our British identity; the retention of our national currency is a key element of our political sovereignty, as well as being in the best interests of the British economy. I also believe that where common European policies have failed to cater for vital national interests, as in the case of the common fisheries policy, the Community should have the humility to admit this and return the relevant powers to the member states. I believe that a new Europe should be shaped not by the desire to strengthen the central bureaucracy in the European institutions and to increase its powers of regulation, but by the desire to liberate and empower our people.

The aim should be to create a dynamic European economy better able to compete with its rivals in the other continents by pulling down the barriers to trade in the single market which is the foundation of our social and economic welfare. I want to see a Europe of enterprise, opportunity and diversity. That is the way to win the loyalty and commitment to it of the European peoples. I also believe the Europe of the future must be a Europe of nations, not a centralised European superstate.

This Europe of self-governing member countries united in their commitment to free trade and co-operation will be a far better one than any envisaged so far in the negotiations for reform of the enlarged European Union. In all the changes to our constitution, from independence to composite monarchy to incorporating union and now to devolution, Scots have also sought to maintain a substantial measure of control over our own affairs, a freedom to do in our own way the things of most value to us. And we have always resisted attempts to deprive us of this freedom. It is a matter of regret to everyone in Scotland that the main threat to our freedom now appears to come from the efforts to create a centralised European superstate.

It is clear that Tony Blair wants Britain to be subsumed into a new United States of Europe, a country with a population of 500 million citizens, with its own flag, anthem and army, its own currency, central bank, Public Prosecutor, Supreme Court, Parliament, President, Foreign Minister, Embassies and Constitution.

In the UK we have no written constitution and yet, as the mother of democracies, our system - developed over a millennium of political evolution - is upheld as a model for democratic government across the world. Yet Prime Minister Blair is determined that he will sign up to this new Constitutional Treaty without first consulting the people of Britain in a referendum. For him to do so would be tantamount to a coup d'état, because this proposed new Constitution would overturn the basis on which our country has been governed for centuries.

The tradition in Scotland, as set out in the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, is that sovereignty belongs to the people. Today that sovereignty is vested in the British nation state and in the system of devolved government it has created. In whatever changes lie ahead in Europe, the people of Scotland will call for that sovereignty to be maintained.

for further infomation please contact:
Elaine McKean
Indigo
Tel 0131 554 1230