Russia and EU preparing agreement on cooperation in fishing

This week Russia and the European Union will hold in Brussels official talks on drafting an agreement on cooperation in fishing which is expected to be signed between September 20th and 30th, 2002.

As RIA Novosti was told in the European Commission (EC), the European Union has a stake in centralising the parameters of the quotas on catching fish in the Northern Sea, as well as in the water area of the Baltic Sea.

This position is shared by head of the Russian State Committee on Fisheries Yevgeny Nazdratenko who earlier stated that agreeing upon the volumes of generally-admissible catches would be a question of fundamental importance at the forthcoming talks.

Furthermore, the Russian side has proposed including a provision on monitoring fishing in the text of the agreement. According to the European Commission, the quality of the work of the Centre for Satellite Tracking of Russian Fishermen is at the top world level in all parameters.