Spain Supports Conclusion of New Fisheries Protocol between Morocco, EU (Minister)

Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas Puchades, stressed on Friday in Cordoba that his country ”supports the European Union and Morocco in concluding a new fisheries protocol for the next four years”.

“Spain’s position is very clear”, said Planas in a statement to the Spanish media, describing as “positive and fruitful” the 5th session of the Joint Commission in charge of monitoring the Partnership Agreement in the field of sustainable fisheries between Morocco and the EU, held on Thursday in Brussels.

“Work will continue, particularly on research and technical issues, to make progress and enable us to conclude the new protocol as quickly as possible,” the Spanish official said.

He noted that “the agreement’s structural support measures have worked well”, while “scientific and technical research is continuing with a view to the future of the agreement”.

Planas said he was “optimistic” and hoped that “this downtime will be as short as possible”.

In the same vein, the Spanish Fisheries Confederation (Cepesca) underlined that the Sustainable Fisheries Agreement between Morocco and the European Union is of “historic importance” in relations between the European Union, Spain and Morocco.

Cepesca said in a statement released Friday that it regrets the end of the fisheries protocol between Morocco and the EU that expires on July 17, and highlighted the importance of this agreement for the Spanish fisheries industry, due to “its specific weight and importance in the history of relations between the EU and Spain with Morocco”.

«Fisheries relations between the two countries date back to the 1950s, before competences were taken over by the EU when Spain joined the bloc in 1986. Since then, agreements between the two parties have been constantly renewed”, recalled the Confederation.

Cepesca’s secretary general, Javier Garat, deplored the fact that “the end of the EU-Morocco fisheries protocol means a new restriction on the fishing activities of the (Spanish) fleet”.

«This is a major problem for companies and sailors in the Andalusian, Galician and Canary fleets”, Garat was quoted in the statement as saying. He urged EU negotiators to work to “define as quickly as possible the technical conditions that would guide the renewal of the fisheries protocol.”