Saving Seafood

UK fisheries bill becomes law, revoking automatic rights for EU vessels

November 24, 2020 — The United Kingdom’s Fisheries Bill has received Royal Assent after 10 months in Parliament, thereby making it the Fisheries Act, the country’s government has confirmed.

Announcing that the Fisheries Act 2020 had passed into law – representing the United Kingdom’s first major domestic fisheries legislation in nearly 40 years – the government said it would now have control over who fishes in its waters through a new foreign vessel licensing regime, and that the current automatic rights for European Union vessels to fish in U.K. waters have ended.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU says Brexit deal still ‘metres from the finish line’

November 20, 2020 — The European Union and Britain have made better progress towards a trade deal in the last few days but there is still a lot of work to do for an agreement to be in place by the end-year deadline, the bloc’s chief executive said on Friday.

Diplomats briefed earlier by the EU’s executive, which is negotiating with Britain on behalf of the 27 member states, said Brussels and London remained at odds over fishing rights, fair competition guarantees and ways to solve future disputes.

However, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sounded a more optimistic note on the last-ditch talks at a news conference, pointing to progress on the question of ensuring a level playing field for state aid.

“After difficult weeks with very, very slow progress, now we’ve seen in the last days better progress, more movement on important files. This is good,” she said.

Read the full story at Reuters

No-deal Brexit could reignite ‘cod wars’, fishermen warn

November 18, 2020 — A no-deal Brexit could lead to a repeat of the “cod wars” between Britian and Iceland across the EU, an Irish fishing group has warned.

Seán O’Donoghue, chief executive of the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation, said he was hopeful that “common sense” would prevail and Britain and the EU would reach an agreement on fisheries in the coming days.

“We’ve had the Icelandic Cod Wars in the past,” he told The Times. A no-deal Brexit “would be similar to that”.

Mr O’Donoghue said that there could be disputes in the Irish Sea, around the northwest Irish coast near Scotland, in the English Channel where waters are shared with France, and the North Sea, where some waters are shared with Denmark.

Read the full story at The Times

EU says still far apart with Britain on fisheries, state aid in trade talks

November 9, 2020 — There has been some progress in talks on a future trade relationship between Britain and the European Union, but both sides are still far apart on fisheries and state aid for companies, the head of the European Commission said on Saturday.

Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter she agreed in a phone call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that negotiating teams on both sides would continue to work hard on a deal next week as time is running out to reach and ratify an agreement before Britain’s transition period ends at the end of this year.

“We took stock of the negotiations with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson today. Some progress has been made, but large differences remain especially on level playing field and fisheries,” von der Leyen said.

Read the full story at Reuters

The Issue That Might Sink the Brexit Trade Talks: Fishing

October 29, 2020 — In the greater scheme of things, fishing is a tiny industry. Just 12,000 people in Britain fish from 6,000 vessels, contributing less than half of one percent of gross domestic product — less than the upmarket London department store Harrods, according to one analysis. The same holds true for most continental European nations.

Yet, as negotiations between Britain and the European Union on a long-term trade deal grind along toward the Dec. 31 deadline, fisheries are proving to be one of the most politically treacherous sticking points. Here’s why the issue is giving negotiators such fits.

Why are fisheries so important?

Boats from continental Europe have fished off the British coast for centuries, and those communities say they face ruin if they were to be locked out of those waters.

But in Britain, European Union membership has meant sharing British waters with fleets from France or other nations — and sometimes seeing bigger, more modern ships catching a larger proportion of the fish. In one zone off the English coast, 84 percent of the cod is allocated to France and just 9 percent to Britain, according to Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organizations.

The British fishing industry contends that its interests were sacrificed for more profitable sectors when the country joined the European Economic Community, a forerunner to the European Union, in 1973. Now that Britain has left the bloc, they want their fish back.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Why Fishing Could Sink Britain’s Brexit Deal With Europe

October 7, 2020 — Twenty or so small boats, slung with orange floats and lobster pots and bearing banners reading “SAVE BRITAIN’S FISH” and “COASTAL COMMUNITIES COUNT,” chugged out of the harbor into the bay. The flotilla set off rockets and flares, and orange and white smoke billowed out over the English Channel. The unusual episode—part protest, part distress call—was replicated in port towns across Britain in April 2018. “You get pushed that far, you’ve got to do something,” Dave Pitman, 65, a third-generation trawlerman who took part in the demonstration, said in an interview this August.

At issue was the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), a European Union agreement that gives European boats access to British waters and which, critics claim, has decimated the U.K.’s fishing industry. The country remains in the CFP while it negotiates its exit from the EU, which Fishing for Leave spokesman Arron Banks said in a statement at the time gives Europe the opportunity “to cull what’s left of the UK fleet.” He added, “Brexit creates a golden opportunity to regain 70 per cent of the UK’s fisheries resources and rejuvenate a multi-billion pound industry for the nation.”

Read the full story at Foreign Policy

Brexit without an EU-UK fisheries agreement would bring great risk, campaigners warn

September 11, 2020 — Allowing the United Kingdom and the European Union to part ways at the end of this year without an agreement on fisheries in place post-Brexit would open the door to overfishing and pose a serious risk to many fish stocks and marine ecosystems, campaign groups have warned.

On 8 September, the E.U. and U.K. began a new round of post-Brexit trade deal negotiations, with fisheries and fishing rights again expected to take center stage as one of the main obstacles to a broader deal.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU Negotiator Cites ‘Objective Risk’ of No Post-Brexit Deal

July 24, 2020 — British and European Union negotiators failed to agree on underlying principles in the latest round of talks on post-Brexit trade between the bloc and its one-time member, again raising concerns about far-reaching economic damage if no deal is reached by the end of the year.

In comments delivered after the talks ended Thursday, chief U.K. negotiator David Frost said it was clear the two sides wouldn’t meet their goal of reaching an understanding on “the principles underlying any agreement” this month.

“By its current refusal to commit to conditions of open and fair competition and to a balanced agreement on fisheries, the U.K. makes a trade agreement, at this point, unlikely,″ Barnier said at a press conference in London.

Britain is seeking a free-trade pact similar to one the EU recently negotiated with Canada. The EU wants to ensure both sides have similar rules on a wide range of issues, including workers’ rights, the environment and government subsidies, before it is willing to discuss such an agreement.

Britain also wants to regain control of fishing in its territorial waters, which have been governed by EU rules for more than 40 years. Foreign boats account for about 60% of the fish caught in U.K. waters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

U.K. Says EU Fishing Deal May Not Be Finalized Until December

July 9, 2020 — A fisheries agreement between the U.K. and European Union may not be finalized until December, five months later than scheduled, Environment Secretary George Eustice said.

The subject has become a sticking point in negotiations over the future relationship between the two sides. Britain wants to restrict EU vessels’ right to fish in British waters, making it conditional on annual negotiations, while the EU has made continued access a precondition of any wider trade deal. They had originally aimed to agree on terms by the start of July.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

UK’s chief Brexit negotiator admits fishing deal is unlikely by July deadline

May 28, 2020 — Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator said it was unlikely that Britain and the EU would finalise a fisheries agreement by a July deadline on Wednesday, as Michel Barnier offered UK opposition parties an extension of up to two years on the transition period.

“I am beginning to think we might not make it by the 30th of June,” David Frost told MPs on parliament’s Brexit scrutiny committee the week before the next round of negotiations with the EU.

“We don’t regard fisheries as something that can be traded for any other bits of the negotiation. There is something very important happening at the end of the year which is that we get back control of our own waters,” he said

“Any agreements have simply got to accommodate that reality,” Boris Johnson’s top Brexit official said, as he described the divisions over the issue between the two sides.

Read the full story from The Telegraph at Yahoo Finance