Fishing leaders stunned by ‘hammer blow’ squeeze on fleet’s days at sea

SCOTTISH fishermen’s leaders have reacted with fury to moves by the European Commission to impose even deeper cuts in the number of days they will be allowed to fish next year.

Earlier this month the industry warned that plans to leave some trawlers fishing for as few as four days every fortnight as part of proposed changes in the cod recovery plan would “break the back” of the Scottish white fish fleet.

But yesterday they were left reeling after new regulations proposed by Brussels pointed to even more drastic cuts for Scottish white fish and prawn vessels, on top of the reductions already proposed for 2012.

Bertie Armstrong, the chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, warned that if the additional and “totally unwarranted” cuts were implemented, they would deal a “hammer blow” to the fleet.

He said: “This latest bombshell from the EC is totally incomprehensible and doesn’t recognise the real and tangible conservation efforts made by our fishermen that have resulted in the recovery of the cod stock.

“The current level of cuts already proposed would cause critical damage to the fleet in its own right, but if these additional reductions came into force, then the impact would be unthinkable.”

Both Richard Benyon, the UK fisheries minister, and Richard Lochhead, the Scottish environment secretary, pledged swift action to address the industry’s mounting concerns. Mr Lochhead said the regulations had come “out of the blue” and that there was confusion over the figures published in the European Commission’s document.

He said: “It must be a huge mistake on Europe’s part and we are trying to get to the bottom of it. It would be absolute madness to provide our fleet with more quota next year for some of our key stocks, but then stop our fishermen leaving port to catch them. Cod only makes up around 5 per cent in value of Scotland’s catch. The other 95 per cent is made up of other types of fish. So it cannot be right to be reducing the days at sea available to catch that other 95 per cent.”

He added: “We will be seeking an urgent meeting with commissioner Maria Damanaki to sort this latest mess.”

Mr Benyon said: “It is deeply disappointing that this regulation has been published while discussions are ongoing.

“We have been working hard to get clarification from the commission so that they understand the impact of this measure. We are committed to conserving fish stocks and to seeing important species such as cod recover, but the current cod recovery plan is in urgent need of review – it doesn’t allow fishermen to fish sustainably.”

A spokesman for Ms Damanaki defended the proposals. He said: “The UK has been informed about this situation in November last year. An inspection from EU inspectors in October 2010 found that there was overfishing due to the fact that effort was not calculated correctly. The commission is obliged under the control regulation to tackle this type of overfishing.”