Spain remains optimistic about overturning Brussels’ limit on trawling in the Mediterranean

BRUSSELS Dec. 9 () –

Spain remains optimistic to try to overturn this Tuesday, together with France and Italy, the European Commission proposal that proposes reducing fishing days in the Mediterranean by 79%, which represents an average of 27 days of work and threatens with ending the activity for the trawling fleet that works in the area.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, has stressed that “Spain is not going to accept any unfavorable result for the interests of fishermen” and has explained that it has joined forces with France and Italy, in addition to the Hungarian presidency of the Council, to present an alternative.

Throughout Monday there have been several three-way meetings in which each of the affected Member States, representatives of the Commission and the rotating presidency of the Council have participated, which, as confirmed by diplomatic sources, is already preparing a proposal for to the negotiations this Tuesday.

Planas has already announced that the negotiations this year will be “complex” due to the distance that separates the Brussels plan from the aspirations of the Government, which advocates a moratorium on the current 40% reduction in effort in the Western Mediterranean, which already limits the days of fishing in the area to 130 based on the multiannual plan for fisheries that exploit demersal stocks.

One of Spain’s arguments for requesting this moratorium is that the Commission’s proposal is based on outdated scientific reports that do not take into account the effort made by the fleet in the last five years or the recovery of the affected species, so They have asked the new Fisheries Commissioner, the Cypriot Costas Kadis, to withdraw the proposal.

Several sources have told Europa Press that the commissioner is sensitive to these requests but that he is restricted by a proposal inherited from the previous community Executive that leaves him little room for maneuver.

“The commissioner has the will, but no tools,” said the general director of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Blue Economy of the Andalusian Government, José Manuel Martínez Malia, in statements to Europa Press, who considers the Brussels plan “a declaration of war.” against their own fishing sector”.

The Director of Fisheries recalled that the Mediterranean has accumulated a 40% reduction in working days since 2019 to guarantee the recovery of demersal species, an effort that already reduces vessel activity to four months a year and that the sector is willing to also take office in 2025 with the guarantee that the new commissioner’s team will analyze the situation again next year.

However, he does not believe that the sector can withstand the reduction of trawl fishing to 27 days, as proposed by the Commission because “no one can tolerate that,” he lamented, before explaining that the only demersal species that worry Brussels They are hake fry and red shrimp.

“Within the more than one hundred species that a trawler captures, removing days because some of the species in a specific area is not recovering at the expected rate is not acceptable,” he lamented, before insisting that the Commission must withdraw his proposal to guarantee the compatibility of fishing and the sustainability of the species.