The Under Secretary of Fishing reiterated in Ponta Delgada today the need to preserve the Exclusive Economic zone of the Azores and to create a positive discriminatory scheme for the fisheries sector in the Archipelago.
Speaking to the journalists about the meeting with the EU representatives to discuss the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, to which he presides over on São Miguel, Marcelo Pamplona reinforced the importance of the Autonomous Region to continue fishing with selective and ecological gear and recommended the management of the Azorean Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) integrated in Macaronesia and the creation of a regional council of the outermost regions of the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
The Under Secretary considers that the Azorean fishers should have a primary access to the local marine resources and defended that the Azores have a very short platform, being a biologically sensitive zone.
Marcelo Pamplona announced that the European Commission considers the path followed by Macaronesia as one of the best solutions for the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands because it is a specific marine biogeographical zone of the three outermost regions with different characteristics from Mainland Europe. 
With regard to the fisheries sector, the Under Secretary recognises that the separate management for these three regions may also be a solution. According to him, the European Commission is open to a management based on a wide ocean basin which would be the western Atlantic waters of those outermost regions.
The Regional Under Secretary of Fishing assured that there is a concerted position repaired between the Azores, Madeira and the Canary with regard to the major concerns of the three outermost regions, including the modernisation of the fishing fleet, the creation of attractive platforms for youngsters and the maintenance of the POSEI programme as a support scheme for the selling fishery products.
Marcelo Pamplona also defends the existence of a fishing activity in the Azores in the long term and hopes that the precautionary principle, based on the sustainability of the sector, is taken into account in the management of fisheries at a Community level.