EU Fisheries Monitoring Agency ready in 2006

The minister said that “in a 15 to 20 days period”

the European Union (EU) will release the agency’s by-laws and competences, FIS reports.

She also seemed confident the organisation will go beyond the mere inspecting role and addresses also the “training of inspectors and inspection technicians,” as well as the coordination of fishing researches “carried out within the EU.”

Although she did not announce the location where the agency is to be set up, Espinosa pointed out the Customs headquarters, by the Vigo Port Authority building, is the most convincing site.

The members of the European Parliament’s Fisheries Commission passed the report on the creation of the agency last February, by 18 votes for, six against, and one abstention.

In statements during a ceremony about the European Constitution referendum, the minister mentioned the possibility that Spain resumes the fishing negotiations with Morocco and declared herself once more in favour of the proposal of sending EU vessels to the tsunami-ridden Asian areas.

In this regard, she highlighted that should the initiative be approved. Spain and France will be the most affected countries since “they have a higher number of vessels of less than 16 metres.”

In Galicia, the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs decided to reopen the O Portiño and Suevos coasts, in La Coruña, after a refinery dumped last January hydrocarbon sub-products that jeopardised with pollution the species and the environment.

Sources from the ministry reported that the analyses carried out by the Centre for Marine Environment Control (CCMM) of goose barnacle samples “indicate and ensure the shellfish gathering in the O Portiño and Suevos areas con be resumed without any risk of pollution.” The results were “lower than 50 per cent than the values set by the Spanish Food Safety Agency (AESA) for the reopening of the productive sites,” they added.