In my family we have been fishermen since 1895, I am the fourth generation and my daughter the fifth. We have survived two world wars and one civil war and we have never encountered such a situation. In war they went out to fish , laments Pere Gotanegra. He is manager of Fishermen of Roses, a company from Girona. He is afraid of having to close in two months if SMEs do not receive some kind of help from administrations. Demoralization on the quay is general, says Antoni Abad, Roses’ patron saint and president of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Associations of Catalonia.
Five fishing boats from Almería were considering yesterday the same as a good part of the Spanish companies: to present a file of temporary employment regulation (ERTE). This is further proof that no economic sector has guarantees of remaining unscathed in the face of the coronavirus crisis. For fishing, it is already on two sides: the impossibility of guaranteeing the necessary measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 on ships and the drop in the prices of some fish in fish markets throughout Spain due to the forced closure restaurants and hotels. More than 50,000 Spanish fishermen are affected.
Today they told me that the red shrimp, which is usually paid in Santa Pola at 100 euros per kilo, was selling for 10, explains Basilio Otero, president of the Spanish Federation of Fishermen’s Guilds. The red shrimp has just come out of one of the ecological closures that are decreed to ensure its sustainability, so the problem does not come from the supply side. After the collapse of the prices of this crustacean is the collapse of demand, like that of the rest of products considered high-end: turbot, sea bass, hake of more than three kilos But it also affects other not so precious: the rooster, smaller hake or monkfish. In the fish market of Caleta de Vélez (Málaga) this morning there were only five buyers out of the 50 who used to go daily.
The shipowners are considering whether, under these conditions, it pays to go out to work. Many return to port thinking about how much money they will have lost with the day because the fixed costs almost exceed those obtained on the return. Although the problems affect according to what is the fishing gear used by each of the 9,000 fishing boats that fish in Spain.
Those who use encirclement these days are shaken by another type of problem, the safety of their crew. They have to live in a small space for up to fifteen people and it is difficult to comply with the conditions imposed by the health authorities to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Gloves can be used, but it is difficult to wear masks in the open sea. And the fear of contagion has caused many fishermen to not want to take the risk. They have ten such boats in the port of Barcelona and last night only three left, in a measure that has been repeated along the entire Catalan coast.
The president of Cepesca, Javier Garat, explains that in the Mediterranean some ports have decided not to continue the activity (such as that of Garruchas, Carboneras (Almería) and that of Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) and, in others, the ships that depart They want. We need aid to be put in place, he complains. He has been talking to the General Fisheries Secretariat for days to find a solution, which they seem to have found. Although the approval of the European Commission is lacking. more than 1,000 million euros from the Maritime and Fisheries Fund so that an unemployment such as that suffered by part of the Spanish fishing fleet can be subsidized.From this item, the aid that fishermen receive when they are forced to paralyze some type of fishing due to ecological closures. We want to have the same conditions as, for example, set forth in the decree approved yesterday by the Government for the ERTE for a situation of force majeure co mo is the coronavirus.
CryptoDictation Team