REUTER 14/3/1995

By Patrick Chalmers

BRUSSELS The European Union is prepared to open talks with Canada on their fish war if a detained Spanish trawler and its crew are released, EU Fisheries Commissioner Emma Bonino said on Tuesday.

But Spain said it would impose visa requirements on Canadians visiting the country and Foreign Minister Javier Solana said Madrid could send more warships to protect its fleet in fishing grounds off eastern Canada.

Bonino told a news conference she was prepared to open talks from 0900 hours on Wednesday in an attempt to settle the row which escalated last Thursday when Canada seized the Spanish trawler Estai in international waters off the Newfoundland coast.

She said in answer to a question she had chosen that time because the Canadian government would apparently decide later on Tuesday whether to release the fishing vessel.

It was not immediately clear whether she was talking about European or North American time.

The EU's External Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan declined to comment on whether the EU would take sanctions if Canada did not free the Spanish ship.

"I am interested in de escalating this thing and not esclating it," he said.

Canadian gunboats fired shots across the Estai's bow as it was fishing for greenland halibut, also known as turbot.

Spain immediately sent a warship to the area an action Bonino regretted. "I did not think it was a good idea for the Spanish to send a warship, for example," she told the news conference.

But Solana told a news conference in Strasbourg, France: "Spain will send more vessels if necessary."

Solana said the EU would avoid all official contacts with Canada other than those needed to resolve the dispute.

He said he favoured economic sanctions against Canada, but it was up to the EU's executive Commission to make a proposal.

"All measures are going to be discussed," he said.

Asked about the possibility of cutting diplomatic relations with Canada, Solana said, "Spain...at present is contemplating all means available within the law and within diplomatic rules. We hope it won't be necessary to have recourse to them."

Spain's decision to reimpose visa requirements on Canadian tourists will take a couple of days to process, a foreign ministry official in Madrid said.

"We have decided to impose this," the official said. "But we still have to see how we can go about it." The necessary legal measures would take at least three or four days, he added.

The EU has called Canada's action piracy and refused talks until the Estai is released. A meeting between Canadian, Spanish, French and German officials scheduled for Tuesday was cancelled.

An EU diplomat, asked if the negotiation freeze extended to all Union contacts with Ottawa, said: "(Contacts) are not excluded, informal contacts could take place. Bilateral, high level talks would certainly be inopportune."

Canadian Trade Minister Roy MacLaren said in Canberra on Tuesday his country was determined to conserve fish stocks.

"We have an obligation in Canada to help to protect the resources of Canada and the resources of the rest of the world," he said during a week long visit to Australia.

"We're not going to stand by again and see the devastation of the halibut fisheries."

Canadian Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin said the Estai was full of undersized, immature fish whose loss underlined Ottawa's concern that stocks in the North Atlantic were being killed off.

Bonino countered on Tuesday by saying that there were no international rules on the size of fish caught in that part of the North Atlantic.