Morocco, EU resume talks on fish accord next week (Adds official saying talks to resume next week)
By Ali Bouzerda
RABAT, Sept 15 (Reuter) - Morocco and European Union will resume negotiations on a fishing agreement next week, an official source said on Friday.
"The two parties agreed to resume negotiations next week," the source told Reuters but declined to give the date and place of the meeting.
The announcement was made after King Hassan unexpectedly received Fisheries Commissioner Emma Bonino on Thursday night at the Royal palace of Skhirat near Rabat.
Mustapha Sahel, Minister of Fisheries and the king's economic adviser, Andre Azoulay, also attended the meeting.
A sixth round of negotiations on a three-year accord, the EU's most important external fisheries agreement, collapsed in acrimony on August 28 over Morocco's demand for drastic cuts in fishing quotas to protect threatened stocks.
Morocco had demanded a cut of 65 percent in squid and octopus quotas, which the EU deems excessive.
Bonino arrived earlier on Thursday saying she wanted to explore ways of moving forward with negotiations on a new fisheries accord with Morocco.
A previous three-year accord expired in April and Morocco ordered the 730-strong mainly Spanish EU fleet to leave its Atlantic and Mediterranean waters.
Rabat has argued some fish stocks face extinction and wants to preserve the source of 15 percent of its export revenue.
The fisheries accord with Morocco is the EU's most important external fisheries agreement and provides jobs for 40,000 fishermen and fish processors in Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands.
Bonino angered Morocco when she suggested after the talks collapsed last month that the EU review its wider relations with Morocco, which is negotiating separately an association accord with the 15-nation bloc.
In July, King Hassan made clear his ultimate goal was full EU membership.
The king's intervention at this stage suggests Morocco does not want to jeopardise its future relations with the EU and that the two sides are likely to find a compromise which would allow the talks to resume.
