Saving Seafood

‘It’s a catastrophe’: Scottish fishermen halt exports due to Brexit red tape

January 11, 2021 — Many Scottish fishermen have halted exports to European Union markets after post-Brexit bureaucracy shattered the system that used to put fresh langoustines and scallops in French shops just over a day after they were harvested.

Fishing exporters told Reuters their businesses could become unviable after the introduction of health certificates, customs declarations and other paperwork added days to their delivery times and hundreds of pounds to the cost of each load.

Business owners said they had tried to send small deliveries to France and Spain to test the new systems this week but it was taking five hours to secure a health certificate in Scotland, a document which is required to apply for other customs paperwork.

In the first working week after Brexit, one-day deliveries were taking three or more days – if they got through at all.

Owners could not say for sure where their valuable cargo was. A trade group told boats to stop fishing exported stocks.

“Our customers are pulling out,” Santiago Buesa of SB Fish told Reuters. “We are fresh product and the customers expect to have it fresh, so they’re not buying. It’s a catastrophe.”

Read the full story at Reuters

Relief or failure? UK seafood sector responds to Brexit deal

January 5, 2021 — The trade deal agreement reached at the eleventh-hour by the European Union and the United Kingdom has brought some relief to U.K. seafood exporters. However, some in the catching sector have been left feeling extremely shortchanged by the new arrangements, particularly where E.U. vessel allowances are concerned.

Following several weeks of negotiations, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that a post-Brexit trade agreement had been reached on Christmas Eve, with the terms expected to allow the U.K. to conduct a smoother departure from the E.U.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Britain secured a good deal on fish, says senior member of negotiating team

December 30, 2020 — A trade deal between Britain and the European Union is a good agreement for the fisheries industry, allowing it to rebuild itself during a five-and-a-half year transition, a senior member of the UK’s negotiating team said on Tuesday.

Fisheries groups have criticised the deal, saying the industry had been sacrificed in the post-Brexit trade talks.

“The deal we’ve got recognises UK sovereignty over our fishing waters, it says that up front,” the senior member of the negotiating team said.

Read the full story at Reuters

Brexit Deal Puts UK Fishermen in Uncharted Waters

December 29, 2020 — The fishermen of Ramsgate, a once thriving seaside town in southern England, had high hopes that Brexit would bring back the pre-EU glory days of teeming catches and lively fish auctions.

Britain had insisted it wanted to take back control of its waters while EU coastal states sought guarantees that their fleets could keep fishing in U.K. waters.

“We’ve been sold out by Boris!” fumed John Nichols in his Ramsgate cottage overlooking the English Channel, referring to Prime Minister Johnson.

Nichols, president of the Thanet Fishermen’s Association representing around 40 boats, said they were looking forward to a return to the days before frozen rectangles of cod could be imported from far away.

They fought for stricter quotas and stepped-up checks, especially against Dutch “electric pulse fleets”, a method that Nichols said sterilizes fish stocks.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

Brexit: French Fishermen Worry What A Trade Deal May Mean For Them

December 28, 2020 — With just days to go until Great Britain officially leaves the European Union’s single common market and customs union, the two sides appear close to a trade deal.

But there has been particular apprehension along a stretch of French coastline that is home to the massive cross-channel rail and ferry port of Calais, and Europe’s largest seafood processing platform. A dispute over fishing rights — a small but highly symbolic sector — has been one of the main sticking points to a trade deal between the EU and the United Kingdom.

Every morning at the English Channel port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, French trawlers pull up to the docks to unload their catch after fishing all night.

Laurent Merlin, a French fisherman, says he gets well over half his catch in British waters, where he says there are more fish. If there’s no deal and the French are banned from fishing in British waters, Merlin says he won’t survive.

Read the full story at NPR

Brexit trade deal: What does it mean for fishing?

December 28, 2020 — Fishing was one of the final sticking points in the post-Brexit trade talks. While fishing is a tiny part of the economy on both sides of the Channel, it carries big political weight.

Regaining control over UK waters was a big part of the Leave campaign in 2016 but some activists have already criticised what is in the deal.

What’s the deal in a nutshell?

  • EU boats will continue to fish in UK waters for some years to come
  • But UK fishing boats will get a greater share of the fish from UK waters
  • That shift in the share will be phased in over five and a half years
  • After that, there’ll be annual negotiations to decide how the catch is shared out between the UK and EU
  • The UK would have the right to completely exclude EU boats after 2026
  • But the EU could respond with taxes on exports of British fish to the EU

What’s the detail on fishing?

The deal runs to more than 1,200 pages, with a section on ‘Fisheries’ along with several detailed annexes.

Both sides have agreed that 25% of EU boats’ fishing rights in UK waters will be transferred to the UK fishing fleet, over a period of five-and-a-half years.

This is known as the “transition period” (giving EU fleets time to get used to the new fishing relationship). The EU wanted it to be longer, the UK wanted it shorter – it looks like they’ve met somewhere in the middle, with an end date of 30 June 2026.

According to the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, which has been briefed on the matter by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, EU fishing quota in UK waters will be reduced by 15% in the first year and 2.5 percentage points each year after.

By June 2026, it’s estimated that UK boats will have access to an extra £145m of fishing quota every year. In 2019, British vessels caught 502,000 tonnes of fish, worth around £850m, inside UK waters.

Read the full story at BBC News

With Time Running Out, EU and UK Near Post-Brexit Trade Deal

December 23, 2020 — European Union and British negotiators closed in on a trade deal Wednesday with only a disagreement over fishing remaining, raising hopes a chaotic economic break between the two sides on New Year’s Day could be averted even as soon as before midnight, officials said.

After resolving a few remaining fair competition issues, negotiators were dealing with EU fisheries rights in U.K. waters as they worked to secure a deal for a post-Brexit relationship after nine months of talks.

Two EU sources said the negotiations were in a final phase now, with one saying: “I expect to see some white smoke tonight.” The official asked not to be identified because the talks were still ongoing.

Customs checks and some other barriers will be imposed under whatever circumstances on Jan. 1, but a trade deal would avert the imposition of tariffs and duties that could cost both sides hundreds of thousands of jobs. Britain withdrew from the EU on Jan. 31, and an economic transition period expires on Dec. 31.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has always insisted the U.K. would “prosper mightily” even if no deal were reached and the U.K. had to trade with the EU on World Trade Organization terms.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

UK travel ban hits seafood exports

December 21, 2020 — With a growing number of countries introducing bans on people and goods arriving from the United Kingdom because of concerns about the spread of a new variant of coronavirus, the seafood industry has warned that businesses and livelihoods are now at risk.

On the evening of Sunday, 20 December, France shut its border with the U.K. for 48 hours, meaning that no trucks or ferries could sail from the port of Dover. Meanwhile, India, Hong Kong, Canada, Switzerland, and Germany have suspended flights from the U.K., with more countries announcing their intention to follow suit.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Brexit helpline to help UK seafood sector during transition

December 18, 2020 — A new temporary helpline to help support U.K. seafood businesses with last-minute Brexit issues has been launched by public body Seafish.

Operating from 21 December, 2020, through 4 January, 2021, the service will give seafood businesses experiencing specific matters around the end of the transition period continued access to direct support from the authority’s regulation experts.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

EU chief says UK trade pact closer but success not certain

December 17, 2020 — Britain and the European Union have moved closer to sealing a new trade deal but it was still unclear if they would succeed, the bloc’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

Britain and the EU are in the final stretch of talks to keep an estimated one trillion dollars of annual trade free of tariffs and quotas beyond Dec. 31, when the United Kingdom finally transitions out of the world’s largest trading bloc.

With just over two weeks left, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he hoped the EU would “see sense” and agree a deal that respected Britain’s sovereignty, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the bloc favoured agreement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament: “I cannot tell you whether there will be a deal or not. But I can tell you that there is a path to an agreement now. The path may be very narrow but it is there.”

Her relatively upbeat comments on the long-running Brexit crisis helped nudge sterling upwards on currency markets. However, von der Leyen also said two issues were still unsolved.

Read the full story at Reuters