water fleet in Western Europe.^ This fleet is capable 

 of fishing anywhere in the world. Despite a massive 

 fishing fleet, Spanish businessmen imported nearly 

 800,000 tons of fish and shellfish worth 

 approximately $2.9 billion in 1992 versus exports of 

 270,000 tons worth $690 million. An overview of 

 the Spanish fishing industry can be seen in tables 1-3. 



2. Fleet Background 



Spain was one of the pioneers in the development 

 of distant-water fishing utilizing on-board freezing 

 facilities. One of Spain's first distant-water ventures 

 began in 196r when Pescanova, S.A. sent a 

 refrigerated side trawler, the Andrade, to fish for 

 hake off southern Africa and another side trawler, the 

 Lemos, to the Patagonian shelf off South America.* 

 Pescanova next converted a former passenger ship, 

 Galicia, into a factory mothership supplied by a fleet 

 of 10 small stem trawlers off South America. The 

 operation was not as successful as hoped, despite 

 abundant supplies of hake. The company decided to 

 build a vessel that could fish for hake in distant 

 waters and process and freeze the catch for long 

 periods of time. The first ship was the Villalba 

 (1,604-GRT) built in 1963.' Other Spanish 

 companies realized the effectiveness of building high- 

 seas stem trawlers and the boom in constmction 

 began. In 1967, Spanish shipyards delivered the Mar 

 de Vigo (2,938-GRT), one of the largest stem 

 trawlers built in Europe at that time. 



The Spanish fishing fleet of the 1990s consists of 

 three sectors: inshore (bajiira), offshore (alturd), and 

 high-seas {gran altura).'° The high-seas fleet fishes 

 off West Africa, Latin America, and New Zealand, 

 as well as in the North Atlantic off Greenland and 

 Newfoundland. These vessels harvest hake, squid, 

 cod, and octopus." Most of the high-seas fleet 

 operates from Vigo, an Atlantic port in the province 

 of Galicia in northwest Spain straddling the border 

 with Portugal. The ships catching cod in the Grand 

 Banks off Newfoundland typically use La Comna, 

 further up the coast toward the Bay of Biscay. The 

 majority of Spain's processing plants and canneries 

 are also located in Vigo.'- The Spanish fleet is the 

 largest in Westem Europe, averaging 190 high-seas 

 vessels over 500-GRT during the past decade. 



The Spanish high-seas fleet in 1992 included 204 

 vessels (235,000-GRT)." Spain's fishing partners 



have long considered the fleet to be oversized.'" 

 This problem first surfaced in 1970 when massive 

 building and intensive fishing resulted in lower 

 catches in hake grounds. As a result, some trawlers 

 were sold to Cuba and the Spanish Govemment 

 ceased providing financial assistance for the 

 constmction of hake freezers.'^ The size of the 

 Spanish fleet was a point of contention as Spain 

 negotiated accession to the European Community in 

 the early 1980's." Other European nations feared the 

 consequences of unfettered Spanish access to their 

 fishing grounds. Fleet rationalization thus became a 

 priority for both the Spanish govemment and the 

 European Community. As early as 1981, a Spanish 

 ministerial order prevented further expansion by 

 Spanish vessels into EC waters." The Spanish 

 govemment also put in place a series of scrapping 

 and conversion schemes in order to reduce the 

 capacity of the Spanish fleet to Community norms 

 under the first and second Multiannual Guidance 

 Programs (MAGP)." With accession into the EC in 

 1986, the Spanish fleet became eligible for EC grants 

 to support fleet reduction. Spain took full advantage 

 of such programs, and by 1987 represented one third 

 of the Community budget for fleet reduction." 



Not surprisingly, Spanish fishermen and vessel 

 owners have complained about EC fleet reduction 

 initiatives. They have argued that the EC's Common 

 Fisheries Policy (CFP) responded to the needs of 

 northem Europe, whose small fleets (with the 

 exception of French tuna vessels) rarely fish beyond 

 Community waters. Continuing the CFP as before 

 despite the addition of the distant water capacity of 

 the Spanish and Portuguese fleets would "condemn 

 the Spanish fleet to extinction through a complete 

 lack of interest or ability to find more imaginative 

 formulas which would be beneficial to the 

 Community as a whole."-" Spain's lack of national 

 cohesion has complicated Madrid's efforts to lead 

 uniform national and external fishery policies. Both 

 the Basque and Catalonian regional governments see 

 themselves as representing distinct sociological 

 nations, and as such resist any centralization of power 

 in Madrid. The Basques are the most prolific fishers 

 in Spain, and have strongly resisted efforts to restrict 

 their fleets (or even to impose quotas on them). 

 Basque fishermen are quick to take the law into their 

 own hands, having gone so far as to deny Spanish 

 and Community jurisdiction over fisheries by 

 negotiating their own bilateral fishing accords with 

 the Azores^' and a number of African states." 



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