§ Sir Richard BodyTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if the European Commission proposes to apply financial penalties following the report on multi-annual guidance programme III; and if he will make a statement. [13869]
§ Mr. MorleyUnder the terms of Council Regulation 3699/93, Member States which have not complied with their Multi-Annual Guidance Programme (MAGP) objectives are not eligible for EU funding in respect of vessel construction or modernisation grants. It is also open to the European Commission to invoke the provisions of the Treaty in respect of any failure to meet obligations which they consider sufficiently serious.
As far as the Commission's Report on MAGP HI is concerned, the section devoted to the UK refers to two outstanding requests for adjustments to our objectives and to the need for certain discrepancies in fleet registers to be corrected.
The Commission subsequently put proposals to the Fisheries Management Committee on 27–28 October which are expected to be adopted shortly. They have the effect of amending the UK MAGP III objectives for the purposes of setting new objectives for MAGP IV. These changes would meet all the points which we have put to the Commission. Details are given in the table.