A delegation including the President of Europêche, Niels Wichmann, the President of the EAPO, Sean O’Donoghue, the Vice-President of the fisheries section of COGECA, Giampaolo Buonfiglio and two Secretary Generals of these organizations, Guy Vernaeve and Emiel Brouckaert, yesterday met EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg, accompanied by his senior officials.
And after the meeting, held on the eve of today's Fisheries and Agriculture Council, the leaders of the three European organisations of the catching sector said they had noted that " significant progress" had been made in the battle to tackle the fuel crisis facing the sector compared to the Commissioner’s statement on May 29.
This, the delegation said, "demonstrates very clearly" that the Commissioner acknowledges the seriousness of the crisis (a 320% increase in fuel prices over the last five years, the 40% increase of fuel prices since January 2008, a 25% reduction in prices of certain fishery products since January this year and fish prices which are at the same level as twenty years ago).
The three Presidents have recommended support for the Commission’s emergency measures proposals, even though some of them can still be improved or further completed. Particularly the sector representatives demand additional funding and measures related to increasing the price of fish to fishermen.
The delegation committed to vigorously pursue the initiatives in collaboration with the Commission’s services to ensure that the sector’s requests will be heard and that the package will be adopted by the Commission immediately.
In a meeting held on May 28 with Commissioner Borg, a delegation from EAPO, Europêche and COGECA had explained in detail why the fisheries sector was a special case and had submitted a series of concrete proposals to implement so as to enable the sector to recover from the crisis.
The delegation concluded yesterday: “We are pleased that Commissioner Borg has taken onboard most of our proposals and hope the situation will evolve in this same direction.”
