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1,200 boats from the autonomous communities of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country will benefit
The Fisheries Ministers of the European Union (EU) They reached an agreement on Tuesday for Total Allowable Catches (TAC) and quotas for 2023 which doubles the southern hake quota for Spain compared to 2022, an increase that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planashas described as “historical”.
The minister has celebrated the agreement reached on Tuesday by the ministers after a “long, complex and difficult” negotiation from which Spain leaves satisfied and with a “historic” agreement for southern hake, which doubles its 2022 quota with a global amount of 9,953 tons by 2023, “the best figure in the last 8 years and the second best of the century.”
Of this figure, which represents a large increase compared to the 10% increase proposed in the initial proposal of the European Commission, 1,200 boats from the autonomous communities of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country will benefit.
The agreement has been reached after more than 22 consecutive hours of negotiations on the second day of the meeting, preceded by an initial meeting on Sunday, the day the minister already predicted a “fishing marathon”.
The mackerel quota has also registered an increase of 20%, which foresees for Spain 29,439 tons of this fish species for some 900 ships in the Cantabrian Sea and which means leaving behind an episode of a fine of 5,500 tons of fine until last year, for which reason Planas has considered this situation “recovered”.
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In relation to haddock, sole and the functional units of Norway lobster, the minister pointed out that Spain has also complied with its objectives by achieving the maintenance of assigned fishing quotas compared to the reductions proposed by the Commission, of 11% in the case of sole, 10% for haddock and 36% for Norway lobster.
Another issue that Planas has described as “complex”, due to the number of Member States involved, has been eel fishing, for which a ban agreement has been reached of six months continuously or in two periods of 3 consecutive months, as requested by Spain.