Two weeks ago EU fisheries ministers adopted an emergency aid package worth up to two billion euros (just over £1.5 billion sterling) to help fishermen cope with soaring fuel costs.

The European Commission says that fuel prices for fishing boats have rocketed by 240 per cent since 2002, putting severe pressure on a sector already struggling to cope with overcapacity and dwindling fish stocks.The Scottish industry in particular has been badly hit by the spike.

But Fridrik J. Arngrimsson, Director-General of the Icelandic Association of Fishing Vessel Owners (LIU), says that a support mechanism of this magnitude will not fail to impair on the competitive position of fishing vessels outside the European Union.

In an exclusive interview with Fishupdate.com he said: "We sell our fish to Britain and the rest of Europe It is, in effect, a very large subsidy for the European fishing fleet."

Although the Icelandic fleet has also been badly hit by fuel inflation, Mr Armgrimsson said: "We in Iceland are not planning to asking our government for fuel assistance - we feel that would be the beginning of the end."

He added that the Icelandic owners had been forced to dramatically reduce the size of their own fleet in recent years. Despite decommissioning, northern European states, including Britain, had a proportionately much larger white fish fleet than Iceland.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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