The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the fishing sector have agreed to relax the fishing control regulation to facilitate its application and ensure "effective and compatible" compliance with the fleet's operations.
Ministry officials met this Monday with the National Federation of Fishermen's Guilds and the shipowners' association Cepesca to analyze the difficulties raised by the sector in the application of certain provisions of Regulation 2023/2024, which came into force on January 10 and has caused protests and strikes in the ports
According to a joint statement issued at the end of the meeting, the relaxations mainly concern the requirement for recording catches and prior notification.
Thus, the Secretary General of Fisheries will adopt a resolution to establish that errors or omissions in the estimation of quantities in the logbook for species with catches of less than 50 kilos will not constitute an infractionRegarding the logging of catches per fishing operation, the agreement has concluded that it will be considered fulfilled when it is provided at least once a day, before entering port or at the landing siteThe sector has also managed to modify the 4-hour prior notification; in this way, it will not be necessary to give 4 hours' notice, to avoid unnecessary waits
Satisfaction in the fishing sector
The fishing sector has achieved the "fundamental elements" it has fought for, celebrated the general secretary of the Spanish Confederation of Fishing (Cespesca), Javier Garat, as he left the meetingAmong them is one of the "most complicated" issues: the declarations of catches of species weighing less than 50 kilograms, which will still have to be recorded, but will not constitute an infraction and, therefore, will not result in a penalty."That is very important, because with the 20% margin of tolerance, the probability of us ending up committing infractions unintentionally was enormous," Garat explainedThe spokesperson has announced that they will ask the European Commission (EC) to interpret it in the future as well, in a possible delegated act or even in the amendment of the control regulation, should that eventually happen"I hope that with the instructions that will be issued in the resolution, the instructions given to inspectors and the sector, we can coexist peacefully and comply with a regulation that is extremely complex," Garat confided.From now on, the sector expects to continue working with the European Commission to "convince them" that it is "necessary" to change the control regulationFishermen's guilds have also celebrated the agreement, which they hope will be published this week in the Official State Gazette (BOE), highlighted the president of the National Federation of Fishermen's Guilds, Basilio Otero
End of strikes
"Tomorrow we return to normal," Otero celebrated, having announced the suspension of the strikes following the agreement reachedFor the president of the brotherhoods, the flexibilities reached with the General Secretariat of Fisheries are good news, given that the previous scenario posed predictable economic sanctions for the sector"We entered (the meeting) with many uncertainties and with the impossibility of going out to sea tomorrow due to these impositions," he stated, after giving the "impossibility" of complying with aspects such as the obligation to send the electronic logbook as an example.
