EU agrees long-term fishery budget at 3rd attempt

LUXEMBOURG, June 19 (Reuters) EU fisheries ministers today put aside a bitter north-side divide to agree how to spend a multi-million-euro programme on the embattled fisheries sector, striking a deal on their third attempt in a year.

The plan for the next seven years' spending, set at 3.8 billion euros, had been on the table since July 2004. EU ministers last tried to agree on future funding in May, and in June 2005 before that. Both meetings ended in deadlock.

Since May, national experts have hammered out a series of technical changes that finally proved acceptable to a majority of EU governments, coordinated by current EU president Austria.

The most controversial area concerned EU aid for replacing engines for small-scale vessels as well as cash for modernising boats: concepts that angered northern states worried about chronically low stocks depleted after years of overfishing.

This is where EU countries often clashed in a rough north-south divide, with France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal -- backed by new joiners Poland and Estonia -- demanding the right for a straight swap of engine if required.

This view ran against those held by countries like Britain, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands who said generous engine replacement rules might cause more overfishing when EU policy aims to protect threatened species like cod.

Most of the changes to the final version of the 2007-2013 budget relate to technical criteria for funding replacement engines, particularly engine size. EU subsidies may now be given to inland fishing areas, not just coastal and open-sea.

Young fishermen buying their first boats, provided they are aged under 40 and can prove they have worked for at least five years as a fisherman, will qualify for EU aid.

The European Commission, which drafted the 2007-13 spending plan, has targeted five areas: reducing fishing, and environment protection schemes; fish farming, general marketing; 'common interest' projects like modernising ports, finding new markets; sustainable development of coastal areas; and expert reports.

Its general aim, apart from encouraging the use of environmentally-friendly equipment and practices in fishing and aquaculture, was help reduce the intensity of fishing operations to allow the recovery of overfished stocks.

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