Saving Seafood

National Fisheries Institute Statement on Suspension of EU/US Tariffs

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.

Scotland wants seafood Brexit taskforce extension

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Britain and EU sign fishing deal – but it ‘won’t please everyone’

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.

Read the full story at MSN

UK proposes new tariffs on US lobsters and other goods

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Scottish salmon producers defy border chaos with record EU exports

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

WTO DG fixes July ministerial meeting on over-fishing rules

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.

Read the full story at Reuters

US, EU to push harder for proposed Antarctic marine protected areas

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

European fisher advocates push for prioritized COVID-19 vaccine access

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.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK ramps up surveillance to deter illegal fishing

March 30, 2021 — Vastly increased offshore patrols, aerial surveillance, and monitoring have ensured that illegal fishing has been kept at bay in England’s seas since the U.K. became an independent coastal state on 1 January this year, according to the country’s Marine Management Organisation (MMO).

With additional government investment of GBP 32 million (USD 44 million, EUR 37.5 million), the MMO has enhanced its surveillance and fisheries control capacity. It has also put more marine officers on shore, more patrol ships at sea, and increased aerial and radar surveillance to complement existing electronic monitoring systems.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Brexit red tape likely to see demise of small fishing businesses, MPs told

March 3, 2021 — Small fishing businesses will “probably” go under due to the increased costs of complying with Brexit red tape when sending their catch to Europe, industry experts have warned.

MPs were told that some fishing firms are even looking at relocating parts of their operation to the European Union in order to by-pass costs and bureaucracy, with Brexit changes expected to hit profits by as much as £500,000 per year.

Some businesses have reported requiring more than 70 pages of paperwork to transport one lorry of fish into the EU.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee heard that the combination of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic had caused the “perfect storm”.

“You just could not have written it any worse if you had wanted to for the industry,” said Sarah Horsfall, co-chief executive of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain.

Read the full story at Yahoo! News