The European Commission has agreed an emergency aid package for fishermen to help offset the recent rise in oil prices.
The package would allow government to give more restructuring aid to fishermen that agree to leave the industry and to provide emergency aid to those fishermen that temporarily stop fishing.
It would also temporarily relax state aid rules to enable member states to provide €30,000 in aid over three years to each fishing vessel rather than each fishing enterprise, which is the current rule. This is intended to help fishermen that own more than one boat, although there will be a maximum cap for aid of €100,000.
Irish fishermen recently blocked Cork port and had threatened to step up their disputes unless the Government won some concessions from Brussels.
Under the new measures, national governments may also be allowed to grant emergency financial aid, but only if it was linked to reducing fleet capacity. There is also the possibility of increasing pre-financing measures for fishermen and up to €25 million in EU funds for marketing and labelling campaigns in the package, which must still be approved next week by member states at an council of ministers meeting.
In a statement fisheries commissioner Joe Borg said the commission understood the need to coordinate action at EU level to avert a severe crisis for the industry. He said the emergency package reflected the fact that there would need to be further restructuring of the fishing industry.
"This means not only providing the possibility of emergency relief, but committing to finally addressing the underlying issue of overcapacity, which is undermining all our attempts to get the industry back on a sustainable and profitable footing," he said.
Ministers from several EU countries, including Ireland, have intensively lobbied the commission to enable them to provide more state aid to the fisheries sector. In Strasbourg tomorrow, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Mr Brendan Smith, and Minister of State for Fisheries Mr Tony Killeen, will meet Mr Borg to press for EU measures to be taken to help fisherman.
The Federation of Irish Fishermen said any aid package was welcome, but that it needed to look at the measures in more detail.