FINE Gael has said that Donegal’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty must be used by the Government as a “bargaining tool” in talks to review the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.
EU fisheries ministers meeting in Luxembourg have been debating improved control measures which would have a strong influence on shaping the new fisheries management policy – due to be in place by 2012.
“The sound of Donegal’s No vote must ring around the negotiating room in Brussels when stakeholders sit down to thrash out a new fisheries deal,” Fine Gael’s Donegal North-East TD Joe McHugh said. He said the State’s fishing industry has “not reached its true potential”.