SPAIN
Wednesday, August 06, 2014, 03:40 (GMT + 9)
Community fishing vessels may resume fishing in Moroccan waters in September, after the European Union (EU) and Morocco have met to celebrate the joint fisheries commission.
Sources close to the bilateral negotiations pointed out the meeting is scheduled for 10 September, in Rabat, and stated that "in all probability" the fleet will return to Moroccan waters that month, EFE agency reports.
During the latest visit of King Philip VI of Spain to the African country, Morocco's King Mohammed VI told him that he had finally signed the fisheries agreement that had been ratified since February 2014 by the parliaments of both parties.
At that time it was interpreted that the return of the community vessels to Moroccan waters was imminent. Morocco, however, clarified that due to the complexity of the process and to the coincidence of the holiday period in the country, the return of the boats could not be completed in August, but a month later.
This delay does not affect the purse seine fleet of Barbate so much as tuna vessels (mostly from the Canary Islands), as well as large pelagic vessels and longliners.
Under the fisheries agreement, about 126 EU vessels are authorized to fish in Moroccan waters. Out of these, one hundred boats are Spanish, mostly artisanal ones and with more than 700 crew members, especially from the Canary Islands and Andalusia.
Morocco is to receive a financial compensation of about EUR 40 million per year in exchange for higher catch quotas for the EU fleet and the extension of the fishing area.
Although some ship owners had begun to pay for the fishing licenses, the Moroccan government warned that this stoppage month will not be considered or that in some way or other, the amount paid "will be discounted," the newspaper El Pais reported.
According to the president of the fishermen’s association of Barbate (Cádiz), Alfonso Reyes, the purse seine sector does not have plans to pay for the licenses to fish in Moroccan waters until the pending issues of the covenant are solved.