Brussels, 09/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 9 February at the meeting of COREPER (the Committee of member states' Permanent Representatives to the EU), several EU countries, like Spain, France, Portugal and some of the Baltic states, backed the idea of extending for one or two years the protocol to the fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco to allow time to negotiate a new fisheries partnership deal (see EUROPE 10311). The current protocol (extension) runs out at the end of this month and the EU wants to avoid any interruption in fishing by the 119 EU ships that fish in Morocco's waters (100 of them from Spain).
The European Commission told the sherpas that it had requested information from the Moroccan government about how the fisheries deal impacts on people living in the Western Sahara (formerly the Spanish Sahara), information that Morocco supplied in the middle of December 2010 and which delayed the process of extending the current deal. The Commission has prepared a draft negotiating mandate for an urgent one year extension to the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, which is expected to be published by the Commission on Friday 11 February. It will then be discussed on 17 February at the EU Council of Ministers' fisheries working group and by COREPER on 18 February. The mandate may be given the go-ahead at the 22 February Agriculture Council or the 24 February Justice and Home Affairs Council. The EU and Morocco would then have to sign the extension to the deal. To prevent any interruption in fishing, the Commission is looking into the legality of a transition system of fishing licences under the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement.
At the COREPER meeting, Northern European countries like Denmark and Sweden repeated their concerns about human rights violations in the Western Sahara and asked to see the information provided to the Commission by the Moroccan government. Spain said it would like a two-year extension (rather than a one-year extension) and argued that the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement complies with international law. (L.C./transl.fl)