June 16, 2021 — The United States and the European Union have resolved a trade dispute that had resulted in a ramping up of tariffs, including on some seafood products.
The quarrel, dating back to 2004, centered around subsidies for European airplane-maker Airbus and U.S. plane manufacturer Boeing. The dispute was brought before the World Trade Organization, which ruled in October 2020 that each side could impose billions of dollars in tariffs.
June 16, 2021 — On Tuesday the United States and European Union announced a cooperative framework to address the large civil aircraft disputes which have been raging since 2004. As part of the agreement, the U.S. and EU have agreed to move away from “past confrontation in pursuit of a cooperative future by suspending the tariffs related to this dispute for five years.”
“After years of bitter litigation and weeks of intense diplomacy, we have reached a deal on a set of high-level principles that resets U.S.-EU engagement in the large civil aircraft industry,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a press release. “We are strongest when we work with our friends and allies, and the partnership with European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis is a demonstration of that principle in action.”
June 16, 2021 — The following was released by the National Fisheries Institute:
The National Fisheries Institute applauds the decision to suspend tariffs on goods involved in the Boeing/Airbus trade dispute. Today U.S. and European Union (EU) policy makers revealed plans to shelve the tariffs for five years as part of a new agreement.
This bilateral action is an important development that helps seafood companies operate in a more predictable climate. The EU is an important growth market for US seafood exporters, and they will benefit from this more stable environment.
Throughout this dispute seafood has been collateral damage, as fish swimming in the Atlantic Ocean could not be further from the planes flying overhead. Today’s announcement is welcome news.
June 14, 2021 — Scotland Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon is urging the U.K. government to continue to help the nation’s seafood sector to work through the challenges posed by Brexit by extending the life of the Scottish Seafood Exports Taskforce.
Speaking ahead of the final meeting of the taskforce on 14 June, Gougeon said she wants U.K. leaders to ensure a forum continues to exist at least until the end of 2021, with an extension allowing issues related to exports to be worked through, and also to prepare for further changes to trade arrangements.
June 3, 2021 — Britain and the European Union on Wednesday agreed the first ever annual deal on the management of shared fish stocks after Brexit.
In anticipation of a potential backlash from British fishermen, Whitehall sources on Wednesday night cautioned that agreement would not “please everyone”.
Brussels said the new fishing agreement proved that the UK and EU could work together after months of tensions since the UK left the Brexit transition period on December 31.
The European Commission said the new deal created a “strong basis for continued EU-UK cooperation in the area of fisheries” after months of negotiations, which began in January.
The agreement sets out the total allowed catch (TAC) for more than 75 shared stocks in UK and EU waters for the rest of the year.
The TAC, which aims to prevent overfishing, is then divided between the two sides on the basis of quotas agreed in the Brexit deal on fishing on Christmas Eve. Both sides had agreed to use the 2020 TAC until a deal could be found.
May 26, 2021 — Lobsters, wine, and chocolate imported into the United Kingdom from the United States could face new tariffs under proposals from the U.K. government to rebalance the list of goods it targets as part of the ongoing trade conflict around steel and aluminum.
The administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump introduced 25 percent and 10 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, citing national security concerns, prompting retaliatory measures from the European Union on goods such as motorcycles, whiskey, and tobacco.
May 17, 2021 — Scotland’s salmon farmers exported a record volume of fresh fish to E.U. markets in the first-quarter of 2021, overcoming the significant post-Brexit supply disruptions experienced in the first weeks of the year.
According to figures compiled by the Scottish Salmon Producers Organization (SSPO) – from information supplied by all of the country’s salmon producers – some 19,410 metric tons (MT) of fish, worth more than GBP 100 million (USD 116 million, EUR 141 million), were exported to the E.U. in Q1 2021. This volume represented an increase of more than 8,200 MT or 74 percent over the corresponding period of last year.
May 11, 2021 — The head of the World Trade Organization plans to host a ministerial meeting on July 15 where she hopes an agreement can be reached on cutting fisheries subsidies after 20 years of talks, a document showed on Monday.
Governments including major subsidisers China, the European Union and Japan spend billions of dollars a year to prop up their fishing fleets, contributing to over-fishing that is decimating wild stocks. The WTO was tasked by world leaders in 2015 with striking a deal to roll them back but missed a key deadline last year. read more
Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who took charge of the global trade watchdog in March, has made fisheries a top priority and urged ministers in an invitation letter seen by Reuters “to find the common resolve and spirit of compromise that the WTO needs to bring these twenty-year-plus negotiations to a successful conclusion at this meeting”.
Intensive negotiations will continue in Geneva with the chair of the talks, Santiago Wills, expected to issue a fourth version of the draft agreement this week.
May 10, 2021 — The United States recently announced it was joining the European Union and several other countries in pushing for the designation of two marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica.
Both the U.S. and the E.U. now officially support the creation of the East Antarctic and Weddell Sea MPAs, to be overseen by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). The designations would move the world nearly 1 percent closer to achieving the goal of protecting 30 percent of the global ocean, called for in 2016 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and recently adopted as an official policy goal of the United States in an executive order issued by President Joe Biden.
May 3, 2021 — The European Commission and European Union member states should develop a specific COVID-19 vaccination protocol for fishers, which also adapts and prioritizes their access to the vaccine, thereby keeping “essential fishing operations running,” according to the European fisheries association Europêche and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF).
In a press release, Europêche and ETF said that fishers are regarded as essential workers and this, along with the “particularities” of their workplaces and working patterns, needs to be taken into consideration.