By Eurasia Review
The Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Council of the European Union (COREPER) has voted in favour of the conclusion of the fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco, which was signed on 24 July in Rabat.
The legislative proposals will now be submitted for approval by the next Council of EU Ministers – not necessarily fisheries ministers, which will presumably be held in Brussels on 15 November. Once the proposals are adopted by the Council of Ministers, they will be passed for its passage through the European Parliament. Voting by the Parliamentary Fisheries Commission will take place on 27 and 28 November and it will be voted on by the plenary session of the European Parliament in December.
Once the processing stage at the Council is complete, the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Affairs will continue working with the European Parliament to obtain swift approval of the fisheries agreement to enable approximately one hundred Spanish boats to return to fishing grounds in Morocco. Fishing activity by these boats has not been possible since December 2011.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Environmental Affairs, Miguel Arias Cañete, has stressed on several occasions that the Government of Spain assigns the “maximum importance to the new Fisheries Protocol between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco, and hence is making every effort for the European Parliament to ratify it at its Plenary Session in December”.
