In 2016, the EU fishing fleet numbered 83 734 vessels with a combined capacity of 1.6 million gross tonnes and a total engine power of 6.3 million kilowatts.
Spain (21.2 %), the United Kingdom (11.7 %), France (10.9 %) and Italy (9.9 %) together accounted for the majority of total gross tonnage (53.8%) and engine power (55.9%) in 2016. However, in terms of the number of vessels, almost one fifth of EU-vessels (18.1 %) were registered in Greece. Italy (14.7 %), Spain (11.1 %), Portugal (9.5 %) and Croatia (9.1 %) registered the next highest shares of vessels.
Greek vessels are typically small, with an average size of 4.7 gross tonnes each in 2016, much less than the EU-28 average of 19.0 gross tonnes per vessel. In comparison, vessels in Spain had an average size of 36.3 gross tonnes in 2016, while in the Netherlands the average was 156.0 gross tonnes per vessel and in Lithuania 287.9 gross tonnes per vessel.
Further information is provided in the Statistics Explained article Fishery statistics in detail.
