EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg will outline measures to help the troubled industry at the European Fisheries Council meeting next week, after he heard today of the difficulties currently faced by fishing communities across the EU.
Minister Brendan Smith
Mr Borg met Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Brendan Smith and Minister of State Tony Killeen today in Strasbourg.
The meeting came after the EU Commission announced an emergency aid package for fishermen yesterday to help offset the recent dramatic rise in oil prices.
Ministers from several EU countries, including Ireland, have intensively lobbied the commission to enable them to provide more state aid to the fisheries sector.
In a statement following the meeting, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food said the Ministers had “impressed upon the Commissioner the serious difficulties and the depth of feeling of Irish fishermen and also the urgent need to bring forward an EU-funded package of measures to alleviate the concerns of Irish fishermen”.
“[Mr] Smith also indicated to the Commissioner his intention to press, at next weeks Fisheries Council, for the adoption of new EU Regulations to prevent the import of illegal, unregulated and unreported fish into the EU market which are undermining the markets for legally caught fish, as well as the early adoption of new conservation measures to reduce discards and juvenile fish protection measures in the waters around Ireland,” the statement added.
The Department said Mr Killeen emphasised during the meeting with the commissioner “the priority that would have to be attached to the Irish fishing fleet in any EU package”.
He also raised the issue of the requested adjustment of the Celtic Sea cod quota.
“Commissioner Borg indicated that he was still undertaking an exercise within the DG Mare [the European Commission Directorate of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs] to explore all possibilities for the identification of some additional funding for the package.”
Fishing skippers and crew agreed to a further suspension of threatened port protests at the weekend, pending the outcome of Irish negotiations at an EU Fisheries Council meeting on June 23rd.
A group of over 300 skippers and crew took the decision to suspend the action - which would have involved blockades this week of Dublin, Cork and Foynes, Co Limerick - after a five-hour meeting in Athlone, Co Westmeath on Saturday.
Yesterday's package would allow governments to give more restructuring aid to fishermen who agree to leave the industry, and to provide emergency aid to those fishermen who temporarily stop fishing.
It would also temporarily relax state aid rules to enable member states to provide €30,000 in aid over three years to each fishing vessel rather than each fishing enterprise, which is the current rule. This is intended to help fishermen who own more than one boat, although there will be a maximum cap for aid of €100,000.
The Federation for Irish Fishermen said the measures were significant but do not go far enough.