By DAVID JOLLY
PARIS — Europe’s top fisheries official pledged Tuesday to work for a new fishing treaty with Morocco after the previous agreement was scuttled last month by the European Parliament over concerns of overfishing and other issues.
Maria Damanaki, the European commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, said in a statement that officials were proposing an agreement that would be “in line with the position expressed by the E.U. Council and the vote in the European Parliament,” which rejected an extension of the previous treaty.
A vote to extend the treaty failed Dec. 14 by 296 to 326, with 58 abstentions, amid opposition from legislators who argued that the treaty did not address concerns of overfishing, expensive subsidies and the rights of the people of Western Sahara, a disputed area claimed by Morocco.
Morocco responded after the vote to what it called Parliament’s “regrettable” decision, warning that it could damage its relations with Europe. It immediately ordered all E.U. fishing boats out of its waters.
Carl Haglund, the Finnish member of Parliament who led efforts to end the agreement even after the body’s fisheries committee had approved it, said Tuesday that the deal had failed to pass muster mainly because it was “ecologically unsustainable and economically unsustainable.”
Under the terms of the deal, 119 E.U. vessels would have continued operating in Moroccan waters in exchange for a payment to Morocco of €36 million, or $46 million. It would also have provided major subsidies — up to €45,000 per E.U. job, according to the commission’s own assessment — to keep them fishing.
Conservationists argue that Europe’s fisheries policy has created a bloated, inefficient fleet that is able to survive only by the grace of government handouts and subsidies.
In recommending that it be rejected, the Parliament’s Development Committee saidthat the Moroccan agreement had received “one of the most negative evaluations ever made regarding any bilateral fisheries,” with fish stocks in an “alarming” condition and no “substantial positive impact on the viability of the sector in Morocco from of a development perspective.”
But in Spain, hard hit by the economic crisis and suffering from the worst unemployment problem in Europe, the collapse of the Moroccan fishing deal has been seen as a disaster. Hundreds of fishermen whose jobs have been cast into limbo protested Monday in Barbate, a battered Andalusian fishing town , and the Spanish government has called for E.U. funds to support the affected fishermen.
Ms. Damanaki, who issued her statement Tuesday following a meeting with Miguel Arias Cañete, Spain’s new fisheries minister, said the two had “discussed the compensation possibilities under the European Fisheries Fund for fishermen affected by the interruption of fisheries. Further meetings at the technical level will explore the concrete possibilities.”
Oliver Drewes, a spokesman for Ms. Damanaki, said there was overwhelming interest among E.U.-member governments to reach a new agreement, and that officials in Brussels were “positive” that a deal would be reached within six months.
Mr. Haglund said that he had no objection “in principle” to an agreement with Morocco, adding: “But the Parliament can’t just rubber stamp an agreement when the evaluation shows it is a terribly bad deal.”
The question of Western Sahara — a disputed territory claimed by both Morocco and the Sahrawi people who are seeking an independent state — is a delicate one for Europe, and above all for Spain, which colonized the area for nearly a century until 1975. A United Nations peacekeeping mission has been in the region for more than two decades to prepare for an eventual referendum.
A former American ambassador, Christopher Ross, was appointed in 2009 as the personal envoy of Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary general, to work for a peace agreement. Mr. Haglund said the United States always insists in agreements with Morocco that Western Sahara be specifically excluded.
If the issues of overfishing and subsidies to fishermen could be overcome, Mr. Haglund said, that should be enough to get the agreement through. A large majority of legislators believe the Western Sahara issue “is something that should be addressed through foreign policy, rather than fisheries policy,” he said, “something to be solved by the United Nations, not the E.U.”
He acknowledged fears in Europe that another country — perhaps China or Russia — would simply take over Europe’s position in Morocco. “But already Moroccan waters are overfished,” he said, “so they shouldn’t.”
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