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		Letter to the Editor Derby Evening Telegraph - Monday 15th March 2004 Dear Sir, The letter of 10th March from Lib-Dem MEP Bill Newton Dunn is long on ridicule, short on facts. I stand by the story he describes as "scary fantasy" on the subject of possible EU controls on fishing in lakes and canals. I got the facts from my colleague Struan Stevenson MEP, a practical Scot who is not given to fantasies. Struan is also the Chairman of the EU parliament's Fisheries Committee, so I suspect he knows rather more about the subject than Newton Dunn. And the facts, which Newton Dunn cannot deny, are these: first, the EU Commission already has powers to control fisheries in inland waters. Second, Poland, which joins the EU on May 1st, has called on the Commission to exercise those powers. Newton Dunn introduces his own red herring with his reference to the proposed EU Constitution, which he suggests might protect our inland waters. He is forgetting the notorious "passerelle clause" in the Constitution, which enables the Commission to adopt unspecified new powers, without limit and without approval by national parliaments. Yours faithfully, Roger Helmer MEP