BRUSELAS, 17 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Fisheries Ministers of the European Union will adopt this Monday a review of the fishing opportunities for southern hake for the fleet in this season that ends in December 2022, for which Spain will see its quota improve by 84%, as announced by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, who has specified that the catches may therefore reach up to 9,201 tons.
The measure that the ministers are expected to endorse at a meeting in Luxembourg will favor 1,200 fishing vessels in the Spanish fleet, especially in the Bay of Biscay and the Gulf of Cadiz, and will allow this year to go from 4,899 tons to 9,201 in one of the species “most valued in the market”, Planas highlighted in statements to the press.
Upon his arrival at the Council of Ministers of the EU, Planas underlined Spain’s defense of the need for there to be a “balance between environmental and economic and social claims” when deciding the fishing opportunities for the sector.
It has also considered “tremendously important” that the quota for this resource be extended to only two months after negotiating the Total Allowable Catches (TAC) and quotas for the following year to twenty-seven.
In this sense, Planas recalled that last year the southern hake was considered a category “without sufficient scientific data” despite the objection of Spain, which defended that it was at conservation levels, for which he now celebrates that the data have “proved” the Spanish delegation right.
The increase for this year, the minister added, is very relevant for Spanish interests because it “favorably prejudges” the situation ahead of the 2023 campaign that the Twenty-seven and the European Commission will negotiate next December.
The revision of the southern hake in the Atlantic will be formalized this Monday together with the agreement that the Twenty-seven hope to close on the TACs and quotas in the Baltic Sea, a fishing ground of low interest to Spain but on which Planas will insist on the balance between the conservation interests with socioeconomic ones that should also be taken into account in December.
