The councilor regrets “the lack of sensitivity and ignorance shown by the European Commission towards the reality of a sector committed to safeguarding Mediterranean fisheries”.
The regional secretary assures that “the punishment by Brussels to a group that has been making an enormous effort in terms of biological stops is inadmissible”.
València – The Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development, Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition shows its most absolute rejection of the agreement that regulates fishing rights for 2022 reached last morning by the European Commission and the twenty-seven Member States, an agreement that implies a reduction of 6 % of fishing days for the Mediterranean fleet.
Minister Mireia Mollà accuses the Community Executive of showing “a lack of sensitivity as alarming as it is intolerable towards the reality of the fishing sector that operates on the Mediterranean coasts and whose behavior and commitment to safeguard marine resources is exemplary”.
In addition, the head of the Ministry recalls that to this new cut approved by Brussels for next year are added those that have already been decreed for the years corresponding to 2020 and 2021 “and that as a whole represent a reduction in the days worked of the 17.5%”.
“Therefore,” adds Mireia Mollà, “it is not acceptable to expect the Mediterranean fleet to continue reducing its activity, especially when there are no objective reasons to support such provisions”. In this sense, the minister underlines that “it is necessary to guarantee the economic sustainability of the sector, because if the Commission does not offer the appropriate conditions, there will not be any other kind of sustainability either”.
Also the regional secretary of Agriculture, Roger Llanes, has been very critical “of this new and undeserved punishment from Brussels to the Mediterranean fishermen, professionals who have been pioneers in the application of measures to safeguard fishing resources and whose fleet, Let’s not forget, it is the one that has been applying biological shutdowns the longest and the one that has covered a larger marine protected area”.
Llanes has indicated that “the Ministry of Agriculture has been working to prevent these measures that affect the Mediterranean from prospering in Brussels and, in fact, has already expressed its opposition to them, but unfortunately the rest of the countries with fishing interests in these same zone have not joined the Spanish position”.
The Valencian fishing sector is made up of 549 vessels, provides direct employment to more than 3.000 fishermen and its annual turnover is around 90 million euros.
