EU

Two billion euros emergency aid for fisheries announced

Article published on the 2008-07-16 Latest update 2008-07-16 14:07 TU

Spanish fishermen
(Photo: AFP)

After months of protests by fisheremen, European Union fisheries minister announced two billion euros of emergency aid to the crisis-racked industry late Tuesday. But the vote was not unanimous. Diplomats say that Austria, Denmark and Sweden voted against the handout.

"Political agreement was reached by a qualified majority in urgent measures for the fishing sector," the French presidency announced.

The European Commission says that fuel prices for fishing have soared 240 per cent since 2002, while the industry is suffering from depleted fish stocks and overcapacity.

The package will be spread over several years, with 1.4 billion euros coming from the European Fisheries Fund, which has a budget of 4.3 billion euros for 2007-2013.

The remaining 600 million euros will be covered by the commission, thanks to a plan it announced last week.

The plan will encourage restructuring of parts of some fishing fleets and will raise the amount of public subsidy to the sector to 100,000 euros from the present 30,000 euros.

France and Spain, which have seen fishermen's protests recently, had pressed for the rise in subsidies.

Markus Knigge of the Pew Environmental Group in Brussels says that European fish stocks are 88 per cent overfished.

Some of the proposed measures aim to reduce capacity, he says, while others could be used to modernise and expand fleets. He considers the package "ill-considered".