MADRID, June 10 (Reuter) - European Union EU fisheries commissioner Emma Bonino met Spanish leaders on Saturday to discuss ways to unblock stalled talks with Morocco on a new fishing agreement.
Bonino spent 90 minutes with Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and Foreign Minister Javier Solana after breakfast with Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Luis Atienza, seeking ways to revive negotiations which ended their latest session in Rabat on June 2 without agreement or a resumption date.
Solana told reporters after the meeting at Gonzalez's Moncloa Palace office the positions of Morocco and the EU in the fishing talks were still far apart.
Spain and the EU were willing to make adjustments to their position. "But we cannot accept an agreement which is not balanced," he said.
"The position of Morocco at the moment is unacceptable to Spain and to the European Union."
The last EU-Moroccan agreement on fishing in Moroccan waters expired on April 30, since when some 650 Spanish and 50 Portuguese fishing boats have been idle in harbour pending negotiation of a new accord.
The EU does not accept Morocccan demands for severe cuts in catches of all types of fish and a major increase in landings of fish in its own ports. Morocco on June 2 rejected EU counterproposals.
Fishermen's guilds in Algeciras and other Andalusian ports agreed on Friday to continue blocking entry of Moroccan fish into Spain in protest against lack of a new accord and Morocco's stance in the negotiations.
Solana repeated the Spanish government's rejection of the fishermen's blockade as damaging to prospects for an agreement. "It is just throwing stones through our own roof," he said.
Bonino also urged an end to the blockade. "It does not help at all. It is an illegal act which doesn't help anyone...either in securing solidarity of European public opinion or in the negotiations."
The previous EU fishing deal with Morocco was the Union's most important external fisheries agreement, providing a livelihood for 28,000 fishermen and fish processors in southern Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands.