Fishermen, non affiliated to Europêche, coming from different Member States of the EU, mainly France and Italy, have organised a demonstration yesterday in the European quarter in Brussels, in order to protest against the Commission’s inertness with regard to the increase of fuel prices which makes fisheries non profitable in Europe.
In a meeting that took place last week with the European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Joe Borg, Europêche submitted together with other European sectoral organisations, ten concrete proposals to find short and medium term solutions for the present crisis in the fisheries sector.
Although the European Commissioner has especially “renewed his call for the restructuring of the sector before it is too late”, which is considered unsatisfactory by the industry to solve its problems in the short term, at this stage Europêche still prefers to favour dialogue with all the European institutions and the member States in order to achieve, as soon as possible, solutions that are able to guarantee employment and survival of fishing enterprises.
While sharing the deep despair of fishermen who met in Brussels to demonstrate their discontent, the President of Europêche, Niels Wichmann, “deeply deplores and condemns the acts of vandalism committed in Brussels yesterday”, adding that “this is not the road to follow in spite of all the heavy constraints and specificities applying to the sector”.
Given the increasing tensions in the harbours of Europe, Europêche urges the Ministers for Fisheries who will meet in the Council in Luxembourg on 23 June next, to thoroughly deal with the issue of the crisis in the sector and to define a series of concrete measures to guarantee employment and survival of fishermen/shipowners in the European Union.
