For local fishermen, the EU is the big, bogey man because announcements from that quarter normally mean new fishing restrictions, making their future bleaker.

For this reason the Motril fishing sector wants an urgent meeting with the Secretaría General de Pesca belonging to the Ministerio de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación because of the uncertain future of the trawling fleet, which is now down to just twelve trawlers.

They want the meeting before the Board of EU Ministers for Fishing holds their meeting on the 13th and 14th of December, where the regulations for 2022 will be beaten out and agreed.

Motril fishermen fear the worst and warn that if what comes out of the EU meeting spells disaster, there will be strikes and protests. The impact on the Mediterranean fishing fleets would be disastrous if even more restrictions are imposed, they feel.

As it is, fishermen’s guilds bemoan that the previous restrictions on the amount of days in the year that they can go out and fish has already put them on the threshold of becoming economically unviable: the restrictions brought the number of days that they could go out and fish down from 240 days a year to only 187. The guild calculates that the minimum to remain profitable is 190 days. Rumours are that they are going to cut it by a further 7.5 days.

Lastly, they point out that the EU present fishing restrictions limits Mediterranean fishing to 12 hour days whilst others fishing fleets can do 15-hour ones.

Back in February the Motril Fishermen’s Guild carried out a strike, leaving their fishing boats tied up and the fish auctioning warehouse empty.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)