The EU-27 fishing fleet continued to decline in 2008 - Issue number 49/2009 - Products Statistics in Focus

In the period 2005 to 2008 the EU fleet continued the decline seen in the period 2000 to 2005. This was in spite of the inclusion of the fleets of new Member States in 2004 and 2007. The decrease in vessel numbers was 12.4% from 2000 to 2005 compared with a fall of 5.8% from 2005 to 2008. In 2008 the EU-27 fishing fleet consisted of under 87 thousand vessels with a total tonnage of nearly 1.9 million tonnes and a total engine power of 6.9 million KW.