Nadia Bouffard, Director General, Fisheries and Aboriginal Policy, Program Policy Sector;

The Commission is therefore asked: to forward to Parliament the conclusions relating to the meetings and activities of the Joint Committee provided for in the agreement, together with the sectoral fisheries programme referred to in the Protocol and the results of the relevant annual evaluations; to submit to Parliament and the Council, prior to the renegotiation of the Agreement, a full implementation report without unnecessary restrictions on access; and to facilitate the participation of representatives of Parliament as observers in the meetings and activities of the Joint Committee.

1. Welcomes the Commission’s view that the regions should be involved in devising and implementing national reform programmes; calls on the Member States to publish information on the national reform programme guidelines, to ensure early participation, in particular, by adjusting programmes to better suit local needs, through more intensive dialogue between the Commission, the Member States and the regions, through clearer and more decentralised sharing of responsibilities and through improved interaction within the regions themselve ...[+++]s;

Since these are guidelines for the framework programmes for a whole financial perspective, the texts only outline parameters, the details of which will be filled in by multiannual programmes.

The European Fisheries Fund is a new instrument proposed by the European Commission for fisheries programming under the Financial Perspective for the EU, period 2007-2013.

The agriculture and fisheries programme (FAIR) With a 607 million ECU budget until 1998 the agricultural and fisheries programme (FAIR) covers the following areas: * agriculture: industrial utilization of crops (materials, bio-fuels, etc.), development and diversification of production * fisheries and aquaculture: development and diversification of production, study of marine ecosystems, socio-economic aspects etc.