Scots fishing rights at risk of sell-off to rich 'Spanish armada'

Published on Tuesday 23 February 2010 21:42

SCOTLAND'S fishing grounds could be thrown open to Spanish trawlers under proposed changes to the Common Fisheries Policy, (CFP), it was claimed yesterday.

Industry leaders vowed to fight any move in the European Parliament to transfer traditional fishing rights to foreign ownership.

Scotland's right of access to a lion's share of North Sea catches is being threatened by proposed amendments to the green paper on CFP reform, due to be debated at a special plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels today.

Scottish Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, a senior vice-president of Europe's fisheries committee, warned that the proposed amendments could end up giving Spanish fishermen control of the North Sea by opening traditional grounds to takeover by wealthy foreign concerns.

Currently, access rights and catches are allocated on the basis of historical catch records under the rule of "relative stability".

The proposed reform would allow these rights to be traded between nations. Mr Stevenson said: "I believe this is a potentially explosive alteration to the rules.

"If this rule is changed, Spanish fishermen could argue that they have equal access rights to our traditional fishing grounds in the North Sea and west of Scotland."

Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation,

warned: "This amendment would open the door for any nation, or commercial grouping, that wished to buy its way into the North Sea to do so.

"And the Spanish industry has always been hungry to access whatever fishing opportunities it could, including the North Sea. "We would resist any move to change the current system and we hope very much that this amendment will not see the light of day.

"Our problem in Scotland is that we have in our waters what everybody else wants. We don't want to go and fish in Spanish or French waters and we want to continue to fish where we are.

"We are fundamentally against international tradable quotas and believe that any reform of the CFP must underpin relative stability."

Mr Stevenson, meanwhile, also voiced his concern about another amendment which calls on the European Commission to look at the adoption of new fisheries management models including "transferable fishing rights".

He said: "If a system of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) is introduced, we can expect the same situation to occur that we witnessed in Iceland where a handful of wealthy fishing companies quickly seized control of all of the available whitefish quotas, forcing many small fishing companies out of business.

"Once again I fear the combination of new access rules, together with ITQs, will enable wealthy Spanish fishing concerns to buy up most of our Scottish whitefish quotas, leaving the Spanish fleet in control of the North Sea."

He added: "The impact on our fishermen would be disastrous. Our ports and harbours would also suffer, particularly if the Spanish vessels decided to land their catch back in Galicia rather than in Peterhead or Fraserburgh, which is highly likely.

"While I am all for reforming the CFP, which has been a catastrophe since its inception, I am determined to ensure we don't open the door to a bargain basement sale of Scotland's fishing heritage."