E. Competition 



Increasing competition for domestic 

 markets has caused considerable anxiety 

 among Polish fishermen and erupted into 

 organized protests on April 5, 1993. 

 Following in the footsteps of their West 

 European colleagues, they blockaded Polish 

 fishing ports demanding that the Polish 

 Government abolish taxes on diesel fuel used 

 by fishing vessels, introduce higher customs 

 duties on imports of cheap fishery products 

 from Russia and the Baltic countries, and 

 reintroduce a system of price 

 support payments to domestic 

 producers. A few days later, 

 Polish fishermen and the Seamen's 

 Union (a Solidarity union) 

 prevented Russian vessels from 

 entering Polish ports to sell their 

 Baltic herring catch at a fraction 

 of the local price demanded by 

 Polish fishermen.-'* Finally, on 

 April 13, union members imposed 

 a boycott of all foreign fishery 

 imports to last until the 

 Government accepts the 

 fishermen's demands. 



Polish vessels and led to the under-utilization 

 of the fleet. In addition, the inability of the 

 three Polish high-seas fishery companies to 

 generate sufficient profits to modernize and 

 replace their fleets has caused a steady 

 decrease in the efficiency of the Polish high- 

 seas fishing fleet. 



The Polish fisheries catch is currently 

 almost 40 percent lower than it was in 1975 

 (appendix 13). In 1992, Polish fishermen 

 harvested over 514,000 metric tons (t) 

 compared to 801,000 t in 1975. A careful 



m. HIGH-SEAS CATCH 



1 ,000 Metric tons 



600 



500 



400 



300 



200 



100 



□ Inland 



□ Coastal 

 Distant Water 



\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ 



Figure 2. Poland. Fisheries catch, by type of fishery, 1975-80, 

 1985-92 (in metric tons). 



The Polish high-seas fleet has 

 fished, since the 1950s, in almost all of the 

 world's productive marine grounds. From 

 1980 to 1992, access to Atlantic and Pacific 

 grounds was secured through a number of 

 agreements with Peru, Argentina, Canada, the 

 United States, etc. The catch, however, has 

 been in slow, but inexorable, decline since the 

 mid-1980s. This trend is caused primarily by 

 the lack of hard currency to pay for fishing 

 licenses to gain access to foreign 200-mile 

 zones. This has limited the deployment of 



analysis of appendix 13 shows that there have 

 been tremendous changes, and even 

 upheavals, in Polish fisheries. The Baltic 

 coastal catch (FAO statistical area 27) is now 

 less than one-third of what it used to be in 

 1975 (figure 2). The inland catch doubled 

 during the same period of time, but it still 

 contributes only 10 percent (51 ,000 t in 1992) 

 to the total catch. 



218 



