On 12 May Members of the European Parliament asked the European Commission to allow fishermen to get more money from taxpayers to pay for their fuel bill. And despite an election only be due for a few years, most of them backed a cross party call increase fuel subsidies from 30,000 EUR a year to 60,000 EUR a year.
French conservative, Alain Cedac MEP, secured cross party support for his Resolution on ‘European fisheries sector crisis due to a rise in oil’. In the UK he was backed by only four UK MEPs. This brought together an unlikely coalition. Northern Ireland’s James Nicholson, joined with the SNP’s Alyn Smith with the support of two UK BNP MEPs, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons.
Fortunately, the vote was not in secret, so you can see how each MEP who voted wanted to spend your money on pages 14 and 15 of the Roll Call Vote.
The vote by the EP for further fuel subsidies for fishermen is not legally binding. But, it does give an indication of where political group in the European Parliament stand on the ongoing debate of the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The resolution calling for an increase in the de minimis limit was adopted overwhelmingly. 367 members backed the resolution against only 205 against it. They were one short of an absolute majority.
Countries Who Voted Against
Only MEPs from Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands , Sweden and the United Kingdom voted clearly against the proposal. Sweden’s 17 MEPs casting their vote all voted against the proposal. Their voting mirrors the positions of the governments in those countries in relation to fishing subsidies. They voted were across party lines.
Countries Where the Vote Was Divided
MEPs from Austria, Belgium, Estonia and Germany were evenly divided, with for example, in Germany 36 MEPs backing the resolution and 35 voting against it.
Countries Who Voted For
But a huge block of MEPS from across Europe backed the motion. MEPs from Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Spain wanted more taxpayers money to be transferred to fishermen to pay for their fuel bills.
You can see how MEPs from each country voted on
Vote Watch.A summary is below.
For Against
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Austria |
8 |
4 |
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Belgium |
8 |
9 |
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Bulgaria |
9 |
4 |
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Cyprus |
3 |
0 |
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Czech Republic |
11 |
7 |
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Denmark |
1 |
12 |
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Estonia |
3 |
3 |
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Finland |
1 |
11 |
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France |
51 |
14 |
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Germany |
36 |
35 |
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Greece |
13 |
0 |
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Hungary |
15 |
1 |
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Ireland |
10 |
1 |
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Italy |
41 |
5 |
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Latvia |
4 |
1 |
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Lithuania |
8 |
1 |
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Luxembourg |
4 |
2 |
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Malta |
5 |
0 |
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Netherlands |
1 |
16 |
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Poland |
45 |
2 |
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Portugal |
20 |
1 |
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Romania |
22 |
4 |
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Slovakia |
11 |
2 |
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Slovenia |
3 |
2 |
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Spain |
29 |
2 |
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Sweden |
0 |
17 |
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United Kingdom |
5 |
49 |
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| Total |
367 |
205
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