Saving Seafood

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

EU ready to ease fisheries demands in Brexit talks: sources

May 27, 2020 — The EU is willing to shift its stance on fisheries in negotiations with Britain next week, sources said, in what would be the first major concession from the bloc in talks on their new relationship after Brexit.

Fishing is particularly politically sensitive for France, and the 27-nation bloc says it would not seal a new trade deal with Britain without a stable agreement on that issue.

Currently, fishing mostly takes place in UK waters but most of the catch goes to European Union fishermen.

Britain wants to unwind that after Brexit materialises at the start of next year, saying that, as a newly independent coastal state, it wants to be in control of its waters and fish.

But the EU has so far sought to maintain the status quo, a demand an official with the bloc suggested was a primarily starting point for negotiations.

Read the full story at Reuters

Brexit trade talks face collapse unless EU abandon demands for continued access to UK fishing waters

May 1, 2020 — Brexit trade negotiations face collapse unless the EU abandons its demands for continued access to UK fishing waters, sources close to the talks have said.

Brussels has called for EU boats to keep access under “existing conditions” as a price for the free trade agreement being negotiated by the two sides. The UK insists any fishing agreement must be separate from the trade deal with access negotiated annually in a similar fashion to Norway’s agreement with the bloc.

A UK source close to the negotiations said that the EU’s red line would need to change, otherwise the talks could be terminated in June.

“There are some fundamentals that we’re not going to change, nor going to move on. Because they are not so much negotiating positions as they’re sort of what an independent state does” the source said.

Read the full story from The Telegraph at Yahoo News

Without a Brexit fisheries deal, herring and other North Sea species face dire future

March 20, 2020 — Taking back control of fisheries became one of the totemic issues uniting supporters of the campaign for the UK to leave the EU. The issue will again be high on the agenda when the negotiations over the future relationship between the UK and EU are able to take place.

This will turn on the principles of freedom of access to , and the rules governing how the EU’s total allowable catch is divided between member states. Both are enshrined in the EU Common Fisheries Policy, and the fishing quotas have been fixed since 1983. Referred to as “relative stability,” these permit a disproportionate amount of fishing in UK waters. Vessels from other EU member states are estimated to catch eight times as much fish from UK waters as the other way around.

The UK government has indicated that getting a better deal for British fishers will be a red line in the negotiations. In particular, it proposes that access to UK waters should be licensed and  shares should be negotiated annually based on “zonal attachments,” which are the proportions of international fish stocks that reside the 200-mile area off the coast of a country, known as the exclusive economic zone.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Fishing Presents a Vexing Snag in Brexit Talks

March 16, 2020 — In the pitch black of early morning, huge waves hurled the 30-ton vessel from side to side, drenching crewmen who struggled to keep their footing as they cast the trawler’s nets into the swirling seas.

But, once back on the bridge, the skipper, Dave Driver was oblivious to the stomach-churning motion of the boat, and dismissive of the perils of his work — even as he recalled once falling overboard and, on another occasion, rescuing two fishermen from drowning.

“I’m my own boss, I do what I want, I think it’s the best job in the world,” said Mr. Driver, who left school at age 15, but now owns the 1.2 million pound trawler Girl Debra, named after his wife.

He has only one major gripe in life: the French.

Mr. Driver thinks French boats are allowed to take too many fish too close to the British coast — touching on a deeply emotional issue on both sides of the channel that could dash hopes of a post-Brexit trade deal between Britain and the European Union.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Scottish salmon faces “huge, unnecessary burdens” through Brexit deal, warns industry body

February 12, 2020 — The Brexit deal being pursued by the United Kingdom’s government could significantly undermine the Scottish salmon sector by requiring exporters to secure health certificates to send products to E.U. markets, the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO) has warned.

At present, because of the free movement of goods within the E.U., Scottish salmon shipments do not require export health certificates (EHCs). However, the SSPO fears this ability will change, saying that it now appears inevitable that these exports will need EHCs after the end of this year, when the transition phase is over.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

France to Britain: No fish for finance deal

February 7, 2020 — The European Union must not give the UK concessions on access to EU financial markets in exchange for rights to fish in British waters, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Thursday.

French fishermen temporarily lost access to waters off Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands situated near the French coast of Normandy, when a European fisheries treaty expired automatically on Jan. 31 with Britain’s exit from the EU.

While the fishermen are due to regain access to the area off Guernsey, future fishing rights in UK waters more generally are likely to be a flashpoint in the negotiations between Brussels and London on a post-Brexit relationship.

Read the full story at Reuters

Post-Brexit funding opened for UK fishing sector

October 29, 2019 — Government funding totaling GBP 15.4 million (USD 19.8 million, EUR 17.9 million) can now be applied for by England’s fishermen and seafood businesses.

The United Kingdom Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said the funds, which were announced last year, are designed to encourage innovation and technology, as well as improving port infrastructure and safety at sea.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

At G7, U.K. Urges Increase in Global Ocean Protections

August 30, 2019 — The following was released by Pew Charitable Trusts:

It’s rare that a world leader could make significant news at a major summit without drawing media attention, but that’s exactly what happened this week at the Group of 7 (G7) meeting in Biarritz, France.

During remarks at the close of the summit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the Aichi targets—goals set nearly a decade ago as part of the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity—must be “replaced with new, more ambitious targets to help us get back the biodiversity that this planet is losing, and has lost.” The United Kingdom Department of Environment has since emphasized how the prime minister urged countries at the G7 to back Britain’s call to protect 30 percent of the world’s ocean by 2030. Fortunately, a roadmap for just such an ambitious target has existed since 2016, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature first issued the science-based 30-by-2030 recommendation to restore and strengthen the health of our marine environment.

Along with urging other world leaders to embrace marine conservation, Johnson is showing his eagerness to extend the U.K.’s global leadership on ocean protection. Since announcing its Blue Belt policy in 2015, which aims to safeguard 4 million square kilometres of British ocean territory, the U.K. has designated a massive marine protected area (MPA) in the Pitcairn Islands, enhanced protections for the remote South Sandwich Islands. It has also established a network of MPAs around Great Britain. As a result, the U.K., in partnership with its Overseas Territories, is very close to fully protecting 30 percent of its waters.

Read the full release here

Brexit Could Spark The Next Big Fishing War

August 19, 2019 — Britain’s looming exit from the European Union threatens to spark a new fishing war ― one that risks depleting stocks at a moment when warming seas are already stressing aquatic populations.

Newly sworn-in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to take his country out of the bloc by the end of October with or without a deal. That raises the possibility of fresh conflicts as European and British trawlers compete for catches in once-shared fisheries and regulatory enforcement falls to the wayside.

A so-called “no-deal Brexit” would pull the United Kingdom out of the EU’s common fisheries policy and could affect “nearly every fishery and species caught commercially in the Northeast Atlantic,” said Michael Harte, a professor and fisheries policy expert at Oregon State University.

Read the full story at The Huffington Post