Spaniards Throw Mackerel, Eggs At Canadian Embassy Fishermen Claim Harassment In Dispute Over Turbot Catch

Several thousand fishermen pelted the Canadian Embassy with mackerel and eggs Thursday to protest alleged Canadian harassment of Spanish trawlers in the North Atlantic.

Reports that Canadian patrol boats had tried to cut the nets of two Spanish trawlers off Newfoundland late Wednesday raised the ire of the fishermen, who traveled in a bus convoy overnight from the northwestern port of Vigo.

Canadian officials emphatically denied the charges, and claimed the Spanish captains were trying to scuttle talks between Canada and the European Union with rumors.

The two sides have been trying resolve their month-long conflict over limits on turbot fishing in negotiations in Brussels, Belgium. The uproar caused the talks to be suspended for a day.

In Madrid, police with plastic shields formed a cordon in front of the embassy, located on a central street, as residents leaned out windows and balconies to watch. There were no reports of arrests or injuries.

Before the demonstration, embassy officials hurriedly hauled in the red and white Maple Leaf flag out front.

The fisherman also held up banners criticizing Britain, who has backed Canada in the dispute instead of fellow European Union member Spain.

Earlier Thursday, the captain of the Spanish trawler Ana Maria Gandon told Spanish national radio two Canadian patrol boats tried to sever the metal cables that keep his nets attached.

“First they tried to board us but couldn’t, so then then tried four times, four times, to cut our net cables. But they didn’t succeed,” Capt. Bernardo Bon said in a ship-to-shore radio conversation.

The captain of the Jose Antonio Nores, Manuel Pesquiera, told Spanish national television that a Canadian patrol boat had “destroyed our nets.”

The boats were fishing on the edge of the Grand Banks, just outside Canada’s 200-mile territorial limit.

“There has been no contact with Spanish vessels, no attempt to cut nets and no attempt to board Spanish vessels,” Canada’s Ambassador to the EU, Jacques Roy, told a news conference in Brussels.

He added, however, that Canadian patrol boats were shadowing the Spanish boats closely.

Last winter, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization set catch quotas for turbot for the first time, in response to a decline in stocks. It awarded Canada 60 percent, or 16,200 tons, of an overall quota of 27,000 tons, but the EU protested, saying it deserved 69 percent.

Under a tentative accord reached Tuesday, each side would get 10,000 tons of turbot a year, leaving 7,000 tons for Russia, Japan and other nations. Spain, however, rejected the deal, saying it would not accept anything less than 50 percent.

Any deal brokered by the EU’s executive Commission must be put to the 15 member-states for unanimous approval.

“We are still hopeful that a deal will be reached in the coming days,” EU Fisheries Commissioner Emma Bonino said Thursday. The talks will resume Friday.