Hopes raised of end to row over fishing rights

Date: 17/06/04

IRELAND is hoping that a bruising row with Spain over fishing rights will be finally resolved next week.

As the current holder of the EU's presidency, Dublin has found itself in the awkward position of trying to sign off the so-called western waters dossier, even though Ireland and Spain are the two countries with thestrongest views on the surrounding issues.

After dire warnings were issued about conflict at sea between Irish and Spanish fishermen, the EU fisheries ministers finally agreed last year on phasing out the 'Irish Box'. This was an 80 kilometre zone around the Irish coast, from which Iberian vessels were excluded. Created when Spain and Portugal joined the European Community in 1985, it expired at the end of 2002.

Yet although governments had agreed it should be replaced with a 'biologically sensitive area' to the south-west of Ireland, the precise details on what entitlements Iberian vessels would have within it have still not been agreed.

Diplomats say the missing piece in a jigsaw - otherwise completed by EU ambassadors on Tuesday (15 June) - concern the level of accessto an area off Ireland'swestern seaboard.

Efforts are continuing towards devising a complex solution, laying out details of access, with a view to having it approved by marine ministers at their meeting in Luxembourg next week(21 June). Irish presidency sources say the prospects of a solution are good and that the remaining obstacles are more technical than political.

The Irish Box issue had been the most sensitive topic relating to the conservation in the western waters, which stretch from the Canary Islands and the Azores to Britain and the north-westof Ireland.

• Primary Source

http://consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/agricult/81141.pdf http://consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/agricult/81141.pdf

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