The worldwide economic crisis has hit Spain especially hard, but Europêche President Javier Garat told SeafoodSource he thinks his home country is managing the crisis, and he has a positive outlook for the fishing industry.
“We are used to different crises, and we have always survived,” he said.
Garat said the economy has hurt consumer confidence in particular.
“It has affected a lot of the consumption of fish product,” he said.
But Garat credited the Spanish government with helping the industry and the Spanish public weather the storm. Garat also mentioned the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which EU officials recently updated. Garat didn’t outright blame the CFP for Spanish fisheries’ financial problems, saying of EU officials, “They have been making hard decisions,” but he said some aspects, such as the discard ban, have been particularly difficult to deal with. Garat said fishermen understand the need for controlling discards, but the ban as it is written may be difficult to implement.
“Next year we will see how difficult it will be mainly for the mixed fisheries,” he said.
You can see more of Garat’s comments in the video below:
