Spain: Mediterranean fishermen are mobilising to prevent them from being allowed to fish for only 27 days a year

The sirens of the fishing fleet in the port of Barcelona have been sounding at full volume for more than half an hour on Monday, while a hundred fishermen, family members, owners and employees of fishmongers and some municipal politicians gathered in front of the Torre del Rellotge on the quayside of the Catalan capital. The twenty boats that make up the Barcelona fleet have not gone out to sea (nor do they plan to do so on Tuesday) as a sign of protest against the European Commission's plan to cut the days spent fishing in Mediterranean waters by 79%. "That would mean that from the 130 days that we go out now we would go to just 27 days. How do they expect us to earn a living working less than a month a year," protested Pau Huguet, president of the Fishermen's Guild. "We have the feeling that they are using us as a bargaining chip to negotiate some other political issue in Brussels at our expense," reflects Huguet, who points to the interests of large corporations that bring fish ...