WRITTEN QUESTION No. 524/99 by Daniel VARELA SUANZES- CARPEGNA Fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union
C 370/50 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 21. 12. 1999 (1999/C 370/063) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0523/99 by Jan Mulder (ELDR) to the Commission (8 March 1999) Subject: Interview in the 18-25 December 1998 issue of ‘Nederlands Gemeente’ magazine with Mr Landaburu, Director at the Commission, on Member States’ net contributions In its 18-25 December 1998 issue, the magazine ‘Nederlands Gemeente’ published an interview with Mr Landaburu, Director at the Commission’s DG for Regional Policy and Cohesion. According to the title of the article, this senior EU civil servant criticises the Netherlands, saying that ‘the net payers are very arrogant’. Does the Commission endorse the statements made by Mr Landaburu, assuming they were correctly 1. represented? Does the Commission consider that it is part of the duties of a Commission official to make 2. statements on the attitude of individual Member States as regards their contribution to the EU budget? Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (27 April 1999) The remarks attributed to the Director-General for Regional Policy and Cohesion were made at an 1. informal meeting with a group of journalists from the regional press concerned principally with negotiations on Agenda 2000 and the many difficulties which were then in evidence. At no time during the discussion was there any intention to denigrate the Member States in the way referred to, but mention was certainly made of the ‘hard line’ being taken by the net contributors and of the fact that their interpretation of the concept of stabilisation differed diametrically from that of the ‘cohesion countries’. 2. In the interests of transparency and information to the press, and hence to the European citizen, it does not appear inappropriate to refer to the content and difficulty of the discussions between the Member States on both the revenue and expenditure sides of the Community budget. (1999/C 370/064) WRITTEN QUESTION E-0524/99 by Daniel Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (PPE) to the Commission (8 March 1999) Subject: Fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union At its June 1998 part-session the European Parliament debated and adopted the own-initiative report on the fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union (A4-0137/98) (1), in the conclusions to which, inter alia, it called on the Commission ‘to draw up a study on the situation in the fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union, covering companies, trends in the industry in the last few years in the various Community countries, data on production, origin of raw material, volume of exports and imports, employment, technical and health standards, tariff arrangements and, in general, on the law applicable to the industry and codification of that law’. Can the Commission say what measures it has taken to comply with Parliament’s request as regards drawing up the requested study and codifying the law applicable to the fish product canning industry? (1) OJ C 210, 6. 7. 1998, p. 295