Brussels – Spain's Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, Luis Planas, expressed delight this Wednesday over the favorable outcomes of the agreement concerning the allocation of EU fishing quotas for 2025, which was finalized early today. Spain succeeded in implementing measures to offset the anticipated cuts in trawling in the Mediterranean while preserving catch limits for several highly sought-after species within the Atlantic fleet.
The Fisheries Ministers of the European Union reached a unanimous agreement on the distribution of fishing quotas in EU waters for 2025. This agreement includes provisions aimed at alleviating the proposed 79% reduction in fishing days for trawlers in the Mediterranean, which would have reduced their operational days to an average of just 27.
Negotiations also covered fishing rights in the Atlantic and North Sea, as well as opportunities in the Black Sea and Mediterranean, with a primary focus on protecting the trawling fleet in these regions.
The contentious debate centered around the cuts to fishing efforts in the Mediterranean. Industry representatives claimed that such reductions would effectively spell disaster for trawlers, which have already faced a 40% decline in activity over the past five years, restricting their operational days to approximately 130 annually.
“The negotiations regarding the Western Mediterranean were lengthy and intricate,” remarked the new EU Fisheries Commissioner, Costas Kadis, during a press conference following the meeting. He highlighted that an expanded compensation mechanism has been established to help mitigate the socioeconomic fallout resulting from these effort reductions for trawling.
This compensation mechanism will partially offset the proposed cuts, as it allows for the recovery of fishing days contingent upon meeting specific environmental criteria—12 options are available, including the use of flying doors, implementing fishing bans, or temporarily closing certain areas to safeguard demersal species such as juvenile hake and red shrimp, which are priorities for the European Commission.
“If these measures are implemented, fishermen will be able to maintain nearly the same number of working days,” Kadis stated, noting that Minister Planas expressed his satisfaction with the outcome.
“We have effectively neutralized the 79% reduction that would have drastically cut the fleet’s operational days,” Planas emphasized during the press conference, describing the European Commission’s initial proposal as “radical” and “misguided,” and calling it a potential “death sentence” for the trawling industry.
Planas mentioned that these more selective catch measures could balance out the proposed reductions, indicating that just two of these measures—the use of 45mm nets for coastal fishing and 50mm nets for the entire trawling fleet—would account for 80% of the necessary compensation. Therefore, “in practical terms, fishermen will be able to maintain the same working days as in 2024.” (December 11)
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