HispanicBusiness

Spain is to demand damages from the European Commission after the European Parliament scrapped a fishing agreement with Morocco, likely resulting in hundreds of jobs being lost in Spain, Environment Minister Rosa Aguilar said Thursday.

Spain is the country most affected by the parliamentary vote that took place in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

"The European Union needs to compensate the damage that will be caused to the Spanish (fishing) fleet," the news agency EFE quoted Aguilar as saying on arrival to an EU fisheries and agriculture ministers' meeting in Brussels.

The E.U. had been paying Morocco 36 million euros ($47 million) annually to fish in its waters.

The deal was expiring in February, but the European Parliament rejected the European Commission's plans to renew it in a 326-296 vote.

It justified its decision with what it regarded as the high cost of the agreement for the E.U., the danger of over-fishing, and by arguing that Morocco did not share the benefits of the agreement with the population of Western Sahara.

Most of the fishing took place off the coast of the desert territory, which Morocco annexed after the colonial power Spain withdrew from there in 1975.

Morocco reacted angrily, ordering all EU fishermen to leave its waters by midnight. Spanish fishermen had done so, Aguilar confirmed.

Morocco will now evaluate its entire partnership with the EU, the Foreign Ministry said in Rabat.

The situation sparked great concern in Spanish fishing villages whose livelihoods depend on fishing off Morocco.

Most of the 119 permits to fish in Moroccan waters under the EU agreement belonged to Spanish vessels, according to daily El Pais.

The end of the agreement was expected to directly affect 500 jobs, Aguilar said.

The Western Sahara independence movement Polisario Front, however, welcomed the European Parliament's decision as a "victory" for the Saharan people.