The 21 fishing vessels, from Andalusia and the Canary Islands, and their professionals who fished in Moroccan waters and who can no longer do so due to the end of the current protocol can request financial aid from tomorrow that the Government seeks to accelerate. The objective is to cover the economic impact of this stoppage in activity.
Specifically, the Executive has opened two lines of up to 302,000 euros, one of 120,000 euros will go to shipowners and another 182,000 for crew members, 50% co-financed between the European Commission and the Government through the concept “temporary stop ” of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (FEMP). This formula is the fastest to expedite the receipt of aid.
The Official State Gazette (BOE) publishes today the call from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with the aid directed to the 21 fishing boats that applied for a license in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to fish in Moroccan waters. Of these, only eleven carried out their activity for at least 20 days in the three-year period 2021 to 2023 (the next vessel below this amount has only fished 3 days). These eleven ships, seven from the Canary Islands and four from Andalusia, also meet the requirement set by the European Commission of not having received more than 180 days of aid for temporary stoppages in the FEMP period, in 2014 and 2023).
Due to the fact that the stoppage in fishing activity affects vessels from more than one autonomous community, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, the General Secretariat for Fisheries will be in charge of managing the aid for shipowners. In the case of crew members, the management will correspond to the Social Institute of the Navy.
For the rest of the ships, ten, the Government assures that it will study State aid to compensate for the slowdown in its activity. Among them are six from Andalusia who have fished for more than 20 days between 2021 and 2023, but who have already received the 180-day stop aid cap, charged to European funds. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, stated this Monday that “it will be a slower path, that of State aid, than that of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, but in any case, they will be covered” .
The renewal of the fishing protocol with the Kingdom of Morocco, which expired today, is awaiting a ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The deadline for submitting applications is 15 business days from tomorrow, the day following the publication of the orders in the BOE.
Minister Planas wanted to take advantage of the announcement of the call for aid to ensure that “this weekend the PP, in line with its usual hypocrisy, is getting into trouble about it.” “Remember that the longest period in which a protocol has not been in force and it has not been possible to fish in the Moroccan fishing ground was between 1999 and 2004, with the Popular Party government. It was then precisely a government of the socialist party that resumed support for these negotiations between the European Commission and Morocco to achieve a new protocol in 2007″, added the head of the branch. Planas has assured that the Government will look for “ways so that the aid covers the entire fleet that fished in Morocco.”
