Brussels, 30/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 30 January, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called on European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to move to negotiate a new EU-Morocco fisheries agreement, following the ending of the current protocol (after it was rejected by the European Parliament - EP).
“I thanked (Barroso) for his efforts to renegotiate a fisheries protocol with Morocco”, Rajoy said in Brussels after his meeting with Barroso. He added: “It is important that the Commission and Council keep up the work and, ultimately, that the European Parliament approve (the new fisheries agreement), as we fail to see why the European Parliament would want to break a fisheries agreement with Morocco that was working very well.”
Barroso regretted the EP decision in December to reject the protocol and said that the Commission was “fully aware of the negative economic and social effects” of the EP's decision “on a significant number of fishing enterprises, especially in Spanish regions such as Andalucia and the Canaries”. He said that, to compensate the economic losses incurred, Spain will be able to use some of the money available to it from the European Fisheries Fund. This funding will make it possible to cover 12 months in all if, during that period, there is no new EU-Morocco fisheries agreement. Spanish Agriculture Minister Miguel Arias Canete has announced that European Fisheries Fund assistance amounts to €9 million for 69 vessels and 661 crew members.
At the fisheries working group meeting on 25 January, the Danish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers presented a draft compromise which, to satisfy the demands of Spain and France, makes no reference to the Western Sahara and, at the request of the United Kingdom, adds a paragraph which refers to the United Nations (see EUROPE 10532). The issue is still not settled. The matter will be discussed in the COREPER (committee of member states' permanent representatives to the EU) on 1 or 3 February. (LC/transl.rt)