It has been a regular fishing day. In the middle of the afternoon, already moored in the port of Blanes (Gerona), Josep Maria Viñas (64) has just finished tinkering aboard the Estelada, the trawler of which he is the skipper and with which he supports his family. After the auction at the fish market – “today a little of everything, not much” – he raises his eyebrows when asked about a future that is not decided in this or another fishing ground, in a day of more or less luck when casting the network, but thousands of kilometers away, in Brussels. There, the Fisheries Ministers of the European Union – “without understanding what this is about,” says Viñas – agreed this week to a 79% reduction in fishing days for Mediterranean trawlers, a death sentence only reversible if they adopt a series of compensatory measures that “are neither easy, nor cheap, nor overnight.” “It seems like they want to kill us, as if we were the bad guys in the movie,” complains Viñas, hat pulled down as the storm rages in Blanes, in a lament that is transversal to that of a primary sector – fishermen, ranchers, farmers… .– which globalization is passing over. The case of Viñas – the fifth, and last, generation of fishermen in his family – is paradigmatic of how a regulation can destroy a group, that of trawlers, which is actually the core and nerve of the Spanish fishing sector in the Mediterranean. 3,000 direct jobs and 14,700 indirect jobs are threatened, according to estimates by the Spanish Fisheries Confederation (Cepesca). While he finishes preparing the boat for the next day – “we leave early tomorrow!” he warns Quim, the sailor he works with hand in hand–, Viñas reviews the family saga of fishermen of which he is the last representative: his great-great-grandfather –“half farmer, half fisherman”– is the one who He brought the sea into the Viñas family, followed by his great-grandfather Joan – “who died at sea at the age of 80 after a tragic day, when he was still fishing by rowing” –. Joan was followed by grandfather Josep, “with whom I started fishing when I was eleven years old.” Josep did not die at sea, but from nostalgia because they took him away from the environment in which he truly felt comfortable. “He went to live in Barcelona with a daughter, but he couldn’t stand being away from Blanes,” explains Josep Maria, who would end up taking over from his father, Pere, who until recently, at 96 years old, could still be seen. mending nets in the port of Blanes. From his father and his uncle, also a fisherman, Josep Maria would inherit his first boat, the Dolores, a trawler on which he fished for nine years and which in 2004 he would end up replacing with his brand new Estelada, “a fiber hull, a good boat.” . The history of Los Viñas is inextricably linked to Blanes, in the same way that this town will forever be linked to the Catalan seafaring tradition. If the Fishermen’s Guild dates back to 1705, a few centuries before, in the 12th century, its port hosted the Christian flotilla that conquered the Balearic Islands, and from Roman times there is evidence that a port base already existed there. Certainly, history matters, but it is about the present and the future perspectives of what families eat. And there, Viñas is clear, denouncing the “interested calculation” that catches are decreasing due to a deterioration in fishing grounds due to the voracity and lack of sensitivity of the fishermen: “How can so much be manipulated? Total catches decrease, yes, but because there are fewer boats – up to 50% in recent years in Catalonia. “I’m fishing the same as before,” he explains, already sitting in an office borrowed from the brotherhood, reviewing his catch history: 14,900 kilos in 2002, 15,400 in 2019, 18,700 so far in 2024… What has diminished, he laments, are the income, weighed down by rising expenses, especially by the increase in diesel: “Before a fisherman I could save. Now the good months serve only to compensate for the bad ones.” The outrage is widespread. Viñas points this out and it is corroborated by both the Catalan Federation of Fishermen’s Guilds and Cepesca, which recall that the sector is already making a great effort, with voluntary measures such as limiting fishing days to a maximum of twelve hours, biological bans of more 50 days, permanent exclusion zones and increasingly selective fishing gear. The new reduction that Europe demands for 2025 is part of the Multiannual Fisheries Plan in the Western Mediterranean, adopted in 2019 and in force since January 2020, and which already implied a significant reduction that is now intended to be taken further. “Since its launch, a great effort has already been made,” Javier Garat, general secretary of Cepesca, told ABC. «It is a fishing via crucis that has been a nightmare for companies and workers. Income from sales at the fish market has been reduced by an average of 12.5%,” point out the Catalan brotherhoods. Now, the new twist demanded by the community authorities has fallen on them like a sentence, and at 64 years old, Viñas thinks in retirement. He discarded it at 58, when he could have legally retired, because he felt well and because, like his grandfather Josep, he cannot go far from the sea. When buying his current boat, 350,000 euros, he also considered it as an investment. “You tell yourself: ‘I’m building a great boat, and when I retire this will have a value, I can sell it, or reach an agreement for someone else to take it to you.’ But of course, with this new agreement, the profitability is not the same. With these new conditions the numbers no longer appear,” Viñas laments. «I don’t complain so much about myself, because look, depending on how, I’m making a living. But I think about younger people… who dares to make a large investment under these conditions? It is clear that generational change is impossible. There are many boats waiting for the aid period to open for scrapping,” says Viñas, whose two children, a boy and a girl, have not followed in his footsteps. The case of Viñas is a good example of what can happen to a sector. who feels persecuted. “It is no longer just about those who board the boats, but about the entire associated commercial, industrial and restaurant business,” insists Garat about trawling in the Mediterranean that generates around 200 million euros. According to the most recent calculations, a total of 3,400 European Union vessels fish in the Mediterranean fishing grounds and the Spanish trawl fishing fleet in this area is made up of 565 vessels that capture species such as sole, acedia, rooster, black halibut, monkfish, conger eel, mullet, shrimp, crayfish, galley, prawn, sprig, cuttlefish or squid, which live on the seabed and require the use of bottom trawling gear to capture them. By region, the distribution of trawlers is as follows: Andalusia, 91; Balearic Islands, 32; Catalonia, 211; Valencia, 208; Murcia, 22; and Ceuta, 1. Standard Related News Yes Flying doors, new nets… this is how the EU agreement affects Spanish fishermen Raúl Masa The changes demanded by the European Commission will have a direct impact on the costs of the sectorAs explained from In the sector, trawling in the Mediterranean is made up of small family boats, between 12 and 24 meters in length, with a crew of three to five people in total and limited capacity both in rig and on deck. According to Cepesca data, the Spanish trawl fleet represents 10% of the entire fishing fleet of our country and its activity generates between 250,000 and 300,000 tons of fish and shellfish out of a total catch volume of around 800,000 tons. Trawl fishing accounts, therefore, for more than a third of the catches of the Spanish fishing fleet and 25% of landings, both in weight and value. In the case of the Mediterranean, the proportion is much higher, and in Catalonia specifically, trawling represented 60 percent of sales in 2023. When what is caught are “disposable” wipes Facing the image of people insensitive to environment, which deplete the sea, Viñas defends the work carried out by the trawlers while pointing out the four boxes full of waste that he has “fished” in a single day. It is part of the ‘Clean Fishing’ project, although Viñas has been cleaning the bottom with his nets for decades. On the deck of his ship he picks up a handful of remains, mainly wipes, in theory biodegradable: “A hoax. “If you put this down the water thinking it will dissolve, now you see that it ends up in the sea.” The wipes, he explains, end up at the bottom, and depending on the currents, they end up buried under the bed, which causes them to rot over time, seriously damaging the bottom. Sensitized to environmental aspects, Viñas remembers the many occasions on which fishermen, environmental groups and administration have reached agreements, for example for the establishment of closed areas, key to regenerating species: “We have reached many agreements, we are not the bad guys in the movie. Viñas is clear about it. He wants to continue living off the sea, and that those who come after him do not have to give up. Together with their companions in the port of Blanes, they resist being the last trawlers in the Mediterranean.
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