Following strong pressure by the Dutch dominated Pelagic Freezer trawler Association (PFA), the European Commission has dropped its controversial proposals to grant access rights to former East Block and Soviet Union countries such as Poland and Latvia to the jack mackerel fishery in the South Pacific., reports Pieter Tesch.
In the original proposal the Commission suggested allocating 11,000 gross tonnes (GT) of the 63,000GT reserved for EU flagged vessels by the newly formed South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) to Poland and Latvia, at the expense of PFA owned German and Lithuanian flagged trawlers.
The Commission said that Poland and Latvia had historical track records in the South Pacific from the Cold War era, but the PFA argued that it had invested U$200m of its own money in developing the jack mackerel fishery between 2005 and 2008, while the Irish argued that their historical track record build up by the Killybegs based Atlantic Dawn Company was totally ignored.
In response to Irish as well as PFA inspired German opposition, the Commission initially amended its proposals by reducing the access allocation for Poland and Latvia in favour of Ireland. However, it eventually decided at the end of last year to revert back to the status quo with EU access to the South Pacific remaining at 63,000GT for those who were already fishing there, while Ireland and Poland could negotiate with SPRFMO access for 2009 based on their historical track record.
PFA president Gerard van Balsfoort told World Fishing that he was satisfied with the solution allowing six PFA trawlers to continue to fish.
Atlantic Dawn finance director Niall O’Gorman said that his company would strive to return to the South Pacific possibly with the PFA owned Johanna Maria.
