CESTICA, Sept 11 (Hina) - Croatia and Slovenia have decided to draw up a code which would regulate the conditions of fishing in Piran Bay in the northern Adriatic during a three-month temporary regime, a Croatian official has
said.
CESTICA, Sept 11 (Hina) - Croatia and Slovenia have decided to draw
up a code which would regulate the conditions of fishing in Piran
Bay in the northern Adriatic during a three-month temporary regime,
a Croatian official has said. #L#
A standing Croatian-Slovene commission for the implementation of
the Agreement on Local Border Traffic and Cooperation (SOPS) met in
Cestica near Varazdin in northern Croatia on Wednesday.
The standing commission bound its sub-commission for fishing to
draw up by next week a fishermen's conduct code which, if adopted by
the two countries' governments on Sept. 19, should regulate
conditions of fishing in Piran Bay for the duration of the temporary
regime, starting with Sept. 23.
The head of the standing commission's Croatian section, Olga
Kresovic-Rogulja, said the code had been introduced as a means to
deal with situations due to problems in the implementation of the
temporary regime, which was agreed on yesterday by the Croatian and
Slovene prime ministers.
Kresovic-Rogulja said the code would also define the area in the bay
it would be applied in, although at the beginning, owing to the fact
that Croatia and Slovenia have still not agreed on their sea border,
existing rules will be enforced on both sides.
Fishing principles will be determined subsequently. In case of a
problem, the higher ecological standard of either country will be
applied, regardless of the opinion of the national economy.
According to Kresovic-Rogulja, the integral solution is
complicated, for which reason the transitional period of three
months has been instituted. Decisions for the future will be based
on results achieved in that period.
One of the key aspects of the fishermen's conduct code is that an
unlimited number of fishermen on both sides will be able to fish in
the area the code refers to, and that there will be no control of the
amount of the catch.
This annuls an SOPS regulation which stipulated a 25 fishing boats
quota each side was entitled to use to fish in the other state's
waters. According to the code, fishermen residing within 10-km from
the border will be able to fish in said area. These are fishermen
entitled to fishing permits under the SOPS.
Kresovic-Rogulja said the transitional regime had been determined
for the bay's contentious area but, she stressed, this was not the
area covered by the SOPS.
The chairman of the Slovene part of the mixed standing commission,
Benjamin Lukman, claimed that the press conference the two prime
ministers held yesterday indicated that their transitional regime
agreement referred to the entire SOPS-defined area.
He added, however, that the details of the entire border area were
being negotiated.
According to reliable although unconfirmed information from the
Croatian part of the mixed commission, the code will most probably
refer to the triangle in Piran Bay delimited on one side by the
middle line of the bay, on the second by the line 300m off the
Croatian coast, as stated in a border deal initialled by the two
prime ministers, and on the third by international waters.
Besides the subcommission for fishing, those for the border regime
and document issuance and tourism also convened in Cestica today.
(hina) ha