Brussels, 04/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - After the last weekly meeting of European and Moroccan negotiators, Commissioner Franz Fischler recalled that the European Union is willing to support the development of Moroccan inshore fisheries, restructuring of the deep sea fishing fleet, port infrastructures and the Moroccan processing and marketing channels. "Not to come to an agreement would mean an opportunity has been missed for the Moroccan fisheries sector", said Mr Fischler, adding: "We are willing to come to a new compromise in order to find a fair solution. But we now need a clear signal from the Moroccan authorities that they, too, are willing to make a move during the next meeting in Brussels".
As already pointed out (see EUROPE of 1 December, p.16), European negotiators made new proposals to meet a number of the Moroccan requests, although the very tricky issue of the number of vessels authorised to fish in Moroccan waters is far from being solved. In opposition to the Moroccan resource conservation argument that should lead to a drastic reduction in the fishing effort (with an 80-90% cut in the number of licenses granted to Community ships), there is the presence of other third country shipping boats and an estimation that the share of catches by European boats does not exceed 18% of the total volume of catches in Moroccan waters. We recall that, out of the 420 Community ships - nearly all of which are Spanish -, benefiting in 1999 from the former fisheries agreement with Morocco, there were 84 cephalopod trawlers and 113 shrimp boats. The rest of the fleet concerned was mainly made up of longliners (including around thirty Portuguese boats) and vessels used for non-industrial fishing, mainly demersal species. The offer made last Thursday by the European negotiators to move gradually towards landing all catches from refrigerator ships in the Moroccan ports is not negligible. The previous agreement already provided for compulsory landing for 25 of the 84 cephalopod trawlers in activity in Moroccan waters in 1999. This obligation would have to be gradually extended to all cephalopod trawlers and refrigerator shrimp boats, of which there were 35 in 1999. EUROPE has reason to believe that, after the last European proposal, landing of 100% of catches from refrigerating ships would be compulsory after the third year of application of the agreement, with European negotiators having also agreed to bring the duration of the agreement to four years (the Commission having initially wanted five).