Shipowners in Andalucia estimate losses of €3m during fishermen’s strike

Fishermen’s strike is believed to have an estimated loss of €3m to shipowners in Andalucia

Faape, the Andalucian Federation of Fishing Associations has estimated this Monday, March 28, that a loss of about “three or four million euros” has been incurred by the community’s fishing fleet and shipowners in Andalucia during the fishermen’s strike.

“We have been two weeks without any type of income entering our homes, and tomorrow we must have a good attitude and an expectation that the measures will be concrete and forceful”, Alonso Abreu, the vice president of Faape, told Europa Press.

Abreu commented that as a “main objective” they hope that tomorrow’s Council of Ministers will approve a “fuel price ceiling at €0.60”, with the aim of making it profitable to go out and fish.

Practically 100 per cent of the Andalucian fishing fleet has been moored for days due to the rise in fuel prices, a stoppage of activity that shipowners and brotherhoods have agreed to maintain until tomorrow, Tuesday, waiting for “urgent” measures on fuel to be announced.

According to Faape, which represents some 350 fishing boats, the price of fuel has gone from being “€0,35 a year and a half ago, to now exceed one euro, a cost at which it is totally unfeasible for us to go fishing”.

The European Commission gave the green light this Monday to the activation of the crisis mechanism of the European Maritime Fund for Fisheries and Aquaculture (EMFAF). This will allow aid to be granted to the fishing sector to combat the rise in fuel prices.

Activating the crisis fund will make it possible to provide financial support to the fishing, aquaculture, and processing industry. This aid will be complemented by state subsidies from the Temporary Crisis Framework, as reported by sevilla.abc.es.

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